In the readings of Lorde as a teacher, she has really taken all aspects into account to be the best listener, mentour, friend, and educator she can be to her students. Becoming a teacher was much more to Lorde than sitting down with her kids and using the written curriculum. She believed in human connection and touch. She focuses on the emotional aspect of life and helps us in understanding ourselves as better individuals and as a whole. In her article, “Poet as Teacher- Human as Poet- Teacher as Human,” Lorde describes the different activities she would do with her students depending on the mood of the day. She says, “The exercise I choose for a rainy day with the same group is different from that which I’d have chosen had the day been bright, or the day after a police slaughter of a Black child” (182). This quote explains how Lorde really embraces human connection and understands the necessary things that need to be done on any specific day to make her students feel better and more connected with the outside world as long as with each other. She also helps them create and produce their own poetry by allowing them to go on the inside and teach them about “feeling herself or himself” (183). This relates back to Zami and how Lorde always believed in the inner and outer touch and that it helped her really know how to feel and express those feelings with others. This can help the children understand themselves more and choose which feelings they wish to share make others understand as well.
Lorde also uses her own personal journals and notes to assist her in her ways of teaching. This is explained in “I Teach Myself in Outline, Notes, Journals, Syllabi & an Excerpt from Deotha.” She is always striving to help her students relate to their own everyday lives and wants to incorporate their experiences as well. One of her students from Hunter College said this about Lorde, “She made you feel, when you were talking to her, that there was no place she’d rather be” (4). Her students appreciate her attentiveness and the insight she brought to the class. She allowed and encouraged them to share their thoughts and opinions and to express their own feelings. Teaching is a lifetime duty, we teach ourselves and others new things from everything we do. It says, “Lorde’s classroom was a place of open wounds, where vulnerability was visible and the learning process entailed acts of mutual care as well as expressions of tension” (7). This quote describes how emotion plays a big role in Lorde’s life and her ways of teaching. Intimacy and feeling fill her classroom atmosphere, which creates this connectedness for her and her students.
In the poem, “The Classroom,” using her own experience, Lorde talks about the classroom environment that she had to live in when she was a child. She reminds us about the bad memories she had, but also relating back to how she felt. She had a sense of “loneliness” bottled up inside her. She didn’t feel as though she fit in with the children around her or impressed her teachers. This loneliness also came from the distance between each other and different cultures. It says, “We are/ Enclosed by the walls between us/ by the chemistry of the dead/ spaces we share” Lorde has always believed in the art of touch and how it connects us with our real feelings and thoughts. She incorporates this sense of intimacy in her own classrooms to allow her students to express their true self and understand more about one another through shared and differed experiences. She uses the adjectives “naive and plastic/ safe and unspeakable” These words define how people act immature, fake, and sheltered, too afraid to be the first one to cross the start line and be the difference. Lorde uses her sense of emotion and motivation for change through her teaching methods and hopes her students will feel comfortable sharing the uncomfortable with her, each other, and eventually the world.
Discussion Questions:
- What effects of Lorde’s own personal experience in school influenced her decision to become a teacher and the way she teaches?
- Why do you think Lorde incorporates the importance of touch even in her teaching? Why does she revolve life around intimacy and emotion?
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I would have never personally attributed touching to teaching in the sense Lorde brings light to. Within my own head, I understand learning as comprehension of something, but comprehension never equated to touching or contact with anyone as I believe this comprehension relies solely upon my own efforts. The sense of being touched or moved by a concept is something I think Lorde is trying to bring light into by claiming, “And young people can now have sexual contact without batting an eyelash, but they cannot bear the intimacy of scrutiny, or of a shared feeling. Yet it is this intimacy which is necessary in order to truly teach, in order to write, in order to live” (183). Being moved or ‘touched’ by something is foreign within a society that casually casts aside intimacy for fleeting sexual lust is the claim I felt Lorde was making. Forcing oneself into intimacy and all that encompasses allows you a deeper understanding both of oneself and others as it paves way to comprehension of things otherwise cast aside.
After reading this, I found myself wishing that I had more teachers like Lorde in high school. It’s very easy to treat education as a job in which you have to simply teach kids the course material, make sure they don’t fall behind on assignments, and try to get the majority of students to pass tests. However, it is much more challenging to level with the kids, communicate with them respectfully, and to become good friends with them on a deep, emotional level. I believe that this is what separates good teachers from great teachers who truly leave a positive impact on the students they teach. Lorde understood exactly what being a teacher means and has mastered all aspects of the English arena: reading, writing, and teaching. The classroom should mimic the real world to the best of it’s abilities and Lorde made sure to do this by making her students feel safe enough to be vulnerable with her and their peers. In explicit detail Lorde claimed her understanding that learning is a two-way process as she wrote, “I teach myself in outline/ haunting my own childhood/ in classrooms of dirty children (Lorde, 1-3)” in her poem, “The Classrooms”.
Hi Cody! Thanks for your response! I too wish I had more teachers like her, and since I am an education major, I hope I can educate and connect with my students in the same way. Reading about her emotional and affectionate ideas in teaching had an influence on me and what I will strive to be for my own students. The vulnerability atmosphere she creates is not only helpful for her to understand her students but for them to listen and learn from each other. I’m interested that you pointed out the difference between good and great teachers because many teachers do the bare minimum. It’s about making school their second home, a safe place, for them to learn and grow as individuals and together.
Hi Kara, I liked how you traced through all the readings for today and Zami. I think that showed how Lorde used all aspects of her life to inform her teaching. Lorde writes, “co-communicating is teaching–touching–really touching another human being is teaching–writing real poems is teaching–digging good ditches is teaching–living is teaching” (182). She used her life experiences, her writings, her knowledge to make real connections with her students. I think Lorde incorporates the importance of touch and intimacy in her teaching because we are never done learning from and teaching each other. Making connections with other humans is a vital part of human life, those connections allow us to communicate and in some ways learn from others. Making a connection as a teacher with students is no exception to that.
Hey Kara, great job on your blog post and really interesting take on Lorde’s approach to teaching. I think her emphasis on touch stems from her understanding of poetry and how it’s more tactile than passive. In “Poet as Teacher,” Lorde writes, “the experience of poetry is an intimate one. It is neither easy nor casual, but it is real” (183). This really speaks to Lorde’s understanding that experience, live and shared, demands something of the writer and forces them to make ideas concrete. Lorde knew how important it was to teaching that her students were as engaged with material as they could be. Especially having been a student of color herself, Lorde makes that effort to be inclusive of her students racial and gender differences. I thought “The Bees” was a really great metaphor for girls learning destructive tendency of boys (historically or statistically speaking) or even that it could represent black girls in particular being exposed to violence when there was opportunity for learning and growth. Lorde put a personal touch in her teaching because she knew how vital it was.
Hi Kara, I loved your blog post! It made me think deeper about the meaning of these poems and hoe they aren’t soley based on education but they reflect the experiences that Lorde has been through. As I was reading her poem, “The Bees” it reminded me of the birds and the bees talk that many children have when they are growing up. For example Lorde writes, “In the streets outside a school/ what the children learn/ possesses them” (1-3). This example is tying in Lorde’s experience with touch. I believe that Lorde found a comfort with being able to experience personal touch and she is sharing her experience through this poem.
Hi there Kara! Great job on your blog post— it truly showed depth and understanding of Lorde’s purpose as a teacher. It was quite intriguing to me that you focused on touch, as intimacy is evidently quite critical to Lorde. She states that, “and young people can now have sexual contact without batting an eyelash, but they cannot bear the intimacy of scrutiny, or of a shared feeling.” Even though Audre Lorde is often times focused on physical touch, here she dives deeper, and explains the importance of being touched emotionally. To Audre, teaching her students breaches the simplistic manner of providing material for young people to memorize— she rather chooses to enhance the way her students are able to think and feel about their own work. This emotional response is so imperative, especially in poetry, because it is ultimately where the drive and inspiration to write arises from. Assuredly, Lorde’s focus on touch breaches far beyond physical, as she inspires her students to get in touch with their emotions in order to truly become great writers.
Hi Kara,
I really enjoyed your insights on this part of Lorde’s life. When reading her experience on being a teacher, I really liked how deeply connected she tried to be with her students. I really liked when you brought up how she wants to teach her students about “feeling herself or himself” (183). That part stood out to me a lot. In high school, I had a teacher who persuaded my fellow peers and I to always delve deep into our inner thoughts. This reminded me of what you said about how Lorde believed in the inner and outer touch. I think the poem “The Classroom” is very crucial. Lorde reflects back on her childhood and how she didn’t have a great experience in certain classrooms. She was constantly being reprimanded, which is why I think she gave so much effort and love into her own classroom as an educator. I think she incorporated touch because she wants her students to feel the way they truly feel and express it through the use of touch. I think she persuaded her students to feel intimacy and express their emotions because that’s how she always lived her life.
Hey Keira! Thank you for touching on the point I made about Lorde teaching her students how to understand themselves on a deeper and more emotional level. Connecting with students not only makes them better learners because of the trust they acquire, but it makes them feel safe and heard. I believe that Lorde’s past experience in school had a major impact on how she wanted to educate her own students. She knew her mother and her teachers left out important real life information which left Lorde in the dark. This idea was brought with her to her own classroom because she didn’t want her students growing up in the dark like she did. She definitely encouraged them to feel and express their inner self because she was unable to do this as a child.
I think due to Lorde feeling as though she was an outsider and not good enough throughout her school career, she felt a need to make others feel welcomed. I believe Lorde was just trying to bring forth everyone’s potential in her classroom. I don’t think that she was going around just touching people I think when she says touch I think she means a deep connection or a connection logically is made and everyone is welcome to experience and voice their thoughts. I also think that she brought about the way we are taught today in a classroom setting. I mean we all express our own experiences and voice our own opinions without the fear of reprisal or judgement. I think she just wanted a classroom where everyone including herself broadened each other’s minds and pushed each other to embrace their uniqueness.
After reading Lorde’s “Poet as Teacher”, I felt a sense of connection that I have never had with another writer. As an aspiring teacher, I’ve always viewed education as my salvation. This education that I speak of exceeds the limits of academia, rather it is the education of self. When Lorde states, “The poet as teacher, human as poet, teacher as human”, she epitomizes the true knowledge that is not simply attained by thinking, but by being (Lorde, 182). The greatest teachers in the world understand the power of connection that goes beyond the hierarchy of teacher and students. Lorde understands that beyond the many labels and titles that we place upon ourselves, we are humans. Every lived experience becomes what Lorde beautifully describes as a “learning device.” (Lorde, 182). But how does one incorporate intimacy and emotion into teaching? First, we must dismantle our understanding of the word ‘intimacy’. Intimacy is more than just part of sexuality, it is a part of our vulnerability that exposes our humanity. It is sharing the most confidante parts of your human experience in hopes of achieving human closeness and connection. As an aspiring teacher, I plan on spending less time building strong classroom management and more time building a classroom that feels like a community—through shared guidance and understanding between me and my students.
Hi Alice! I really appreciate your notion to understand the word intimacy in order to grasp the true meaning of Lorde’s purpose as a teacher. It is very important to view intimacy as not always sexual, but accepting our emotions and being able to share and learn from them. Lorde believes we must all welcome these ideas into our heads and not shut them down. I like your focus on just “being” and in this human experience of life, we are all learning every day and finding our true meaning. We learn from intimate connections and relationships with those who surround us, either good or bad, and then we choose how to bring those ideas forward like Lorde had.
Hey Kara, Good job on your blog post. I love how you talk about how Lorde was much more focused on human connection. I really like Lorde method of teaching because I believe that it give a better learning experience. When teachers aim at educating rather than getting through material, there is an greater connection to learning and as a result education.
When you are teaching, student often learn better with related experiences and Lorde’s method encompasses that. I believe that experience in school wasn’t the greatest as we read about in Zami and because of that, she choose to model the type of teachers she needed and wanted.
Hey Kara,
I am so excited to dive into the teaching element in which Lorde created her definition of successful teaching. Lorde inspires me as a person, but as a teacher, I take these readings to heart with me to be the best teacher I possibly could. What some educators fail to understand is that teaching content is ineffective without a personal, human connection with students: the youth of today, and the future of tomorrow. I found the concept of touch surprising besides how many describe teaching to be a job that is “touching.” Lorde uses the sense of touch as a deeper sense of communication. Studying Adolescent Education in English as my major makes me realize that human connection is vital to literature and its key to getting others to analyze literature critically too. Lorde draws in so many aspects of her background and applies it to her classroom culture. In contrast to how Lorde is a nurturing force of knowledge and humanity in her classroom, the poem “The Classrooms” is the reality of what Lorde faced as a child in her school environment. “I teach myself in outline haunting my childhood.” I felt the heaviness of emotion in this poem, and I know that connects to the depth of emotion Lorde pours into her classroom.
Through Audre Lorde’s style of teaching, there has been a revelation of non-conforming education where the teacher goes beyond the structural norm. Due to Lorde’s experiences as a child with learning disabilities, she is sympathetic to others, genuinely wants her class intrigued, and to feel welcomed. By interweaving intimacy, she is able to form a sense of trust and comfort within her classroom. In the reading “Poet as Teacher,” demonstrates the change of power dynamic of the stereotypical classroom setting has caused her students to liberate their minds and in a sense become raw, “So you see, I do not teach anyone how to create poetry. I can help children recognize and respect their own poetry… (Lorde, 183).” Lorde gives her students her full attention and makes them feel worthy of her space. There is a mutual learning system that occurs in her classroom, which isn’t commonly found in other classroom settings nor with professors. These readings were essential and enlightened the difference between the norm of educating vs. Lorde’s new refined approach in educating her students.
Hi Kara!
I think this is a very well thought out blog post for this discussion of Lorde’s teaching skills. To answer your second question I think we must look to her last line of her article, “Poet as Teacher- Human as Poet- Teacher as Human.” The last line reads, “As you feel, as you live, as you share your feelings, so do you teach,” which encapsulates how and why she teaches the way she does (183). As we’ve noticed throughout Lorde’s poetry, touch has power within it that many times goes unnoticed by people. Similarly, many people believe that intimacy has to always connote to something sexual which is not the case at all. Lorde’s last line, basically professes that as you share yourself as a human, you encourage others to be vulnerable and comfortable enough to learn, which in the end creates lessons and teachers. Lorde revolves her life around intimacy and emotion because she prioritizes these two pillars of life over many other things; being intimate and not afraid to endure emotions gives Lorde a sense of power which she uses as fuel when times get hard.
Hi Kara,
I really liked your post. The idea that Lorde incorporates touch with teaching is something I have not thought of. Now, looking at her writing with this idea, I understand why you incorporated the two things together. I think Lorde is so loving and intimate with her students because she had never had this growing up. Her piece, “Classrooms” showed her audience what her school environment was like. She writes, “I teach myself in outline haunting my childhood.”She wants to be a teacher unlike any teacher she has encountered. She does this by using intimacy and love. Her own experiences have shaped her into the educator she is now.
Hi Kara,
I really liked your blog post. I really liked reading about how Lorde was as a teacher and it made me even reflect on my experiences with teachers I had in high school and even now in college. I think Lorde incorporates ideas such as touch into her teaching because I think having physical connections with people is important. It makes more experiences for her students to be more real. Lorde makes sure that her students know that she is there for them and not just as a teacher. That is something that I always liked about some of my college professors because I feel like I could talk to them about something personal in my life and not always about academics. Lorde states, “So you see, I do not teach anyone how to create poetry. I can help children recognize and respect their own poetry; I can show a student how to improve what is already written-and by improve I mean specifically how to bring the poem closer to feeling the poet wishes to evoke”(183). Lorde wanted to connect with her students on a deeper level and that is something that I would want in all my teachers because it connects us all as people and shows that we all have our own feelings that bring us together.
Hey Kara,
I really enjoyed your take on the reading. In response to one of your discussion questions, I believe Lorde focused everything around touch and intimacy because she herself found it to be quite pivotal in her life. She realized there are different kinds of intimacy and touch and each is key to having a full life. As Lorde states, “And young people can now have sexual contact without batting an eyelash, but they cannot bear the intimacy of scrutiny, or of a shared feeling. Yet it is this intimacy which is necessary in order to truly teach, in order to write, in order to live” (183). Lorde reveals another reason to incorporate intimacy into the classroom, because the students were lacking the ability to be intimate with not only themselves but their work and those around them. Which honestly reminds me of this day and age where people can barely hold a conversation in person because of our intimate connections to our phones and devices and not to actual people. I believe she was trying to show them an important aspect of their lives that would bring more substance and life to their lives.
I think Lorde incorporates the importance of touch and revolves life around intimacy and emotion because these are things that you can’t take out of each other, touching is physical but it also connects people together on different levels. You can’t take emotions out of life otherwise there will be no living that’s why it is important to be “feeling herself or himself” (183).
Late comment, apologies
Hi, Kara! Great blog post, very insightful and well worded! To answer your second question, I think Lorde incorporates the importance of touch in every aspect of her life, so I was not too surprised to read that she did the same in the classroom. I think the word “touch” can relate to emotionally “being touched” as well as the physical touch. As we’ve read examples upon examples of Lorde’s work, touch is a clear theme that she discusses, though while she discusses her actions and other people’s actions emotionally touching each other, I have always noticed her very clear and obvious discussions about the physical touch. However, I enjoy the way that she incorporates both into her teaching, as touch helps people understand themselves inside and out. On page 183, Lorde writes about having her students write poetry to help teach her students about “feeling herself or himself”, which relates to the inward emotional side, while on the same page she also goes on to talk about how “young people can now have sexual contact without batting an eyelash, but they cannot bear the intimacy of scrutiny, or of a shared feeling”. Being able to influence others to feel themselves, inwardly and outwardly is essentially the personal form of reading other people’s stories, but instead of learning a deeper knowledge of another person, they are learning a deeper knowledge of themselves.