Connections—Sharon J. Washington at the 2008 NWP Annual Meeting

Date: November 21, 2008

Summary: In her first Annual Meeting address as NWP executive director, Sharon J. Washington reflects on the various things that connect people to each other in this time of "great connections."

I would like to acknowledge the work that happened in the network prior to my arrival, under the leadership of Jim Gray, whom I wish that I could have met, and Richard Sterling, who I know is here this morning with us.

Under Richard's leadership, NWP grew and became a strong, complex network of teachers, doing phenomenal advocacy work in DC, with strong financial support, and clean audits for many years. And I was like, you mean I get to inherit something that is this sound? I know Richard did not accomplish this on his own, but I am aware and very appreciative of the work that Richard has done to strengthen the National Writing Project.

At any given moment in our lives, we have choices. At times, the number of choices may seem overwhelming. Choosing one crayon from a box of eight for a three-year old can seem just as challenging as selecting what to wear for a middle-aged woman. Last autumn was an important decision point for the National Writing Project. I was truly honored and humbled to be asked to join NWP and felt that saying "Yes, I will" was the perfect choice. Now, nearly a year later, I know it was the perfect choice at the perfect time. I continue to be honored and humbled to work with an amazing and talented group of people, in service to you, the teacher-stars in our network.

Exploring Connections

The theme of this year's general session is "Our Writing and Learning Connect Us." And so, for the next several minutes I thought I would explore connections.

All of us in this room and across the network are connected through the mission of the National Writing Project: to improve writing and learning in the nation's schools. One glance at this fine-looking group gathered today and I see people who have made the choice to spend their precious time in the company of colleagues focused on a common cause.

I learned from reading our monographs and articles, and from listening to your personal testimonies during my visits to local writing project sites, and in numerous conversations at national programs, that our commitment to inquiry for the improvement of student writing and learning does indeed connect us.

Our experiences connect us.

Many of us in this room have had the experience of being "other" or "outsider," so I know many of you will be able to relate to part of my history.

I grew up in a small town outside of Columbus, Ohio, attending predominantly white schools, where I learned early the necessity of finding connections. I could either find connections to my schoolmates or be isolated.

What would it mean if we were open to the unexpected?

From a young age I became practiced in connecting with others. Sometimes the points of connection would be obvious or expected and I only needed to take the first step to build a bridge. I don't mean to make it seem universally easy, but right now there's not enough time to unpack the toll and the residual benefits of bridge building.

However, being viewed as "other" means that there are times when folks, including myself, find particular connections an unexpected, yet pleasant surprise!

Our teaching connects us.

One benefit I gained from my early experiences as a "connector" was that I became well practiced in connecting with students of different races and ethnicities. However, I remember clearly the first time "Josh," a prospective graduate student, came to my office to discuss the program. I looked at him and immediately began scanning my cultural database, trying to find information that would assist me in connecting with him. In the time it took for Josh to ask "Are you Dr. Washington?" and for me to respond that I was, I had registered visual information and made a guess about what would be inclusive or welcoming behavior on my part.

White guy – check.
Beard – check.
Yarmulke – check.
What looked like the fringe of a tallith hanging under his argyle sweater vest – check.
Gray or tan dungarees – check.
Teva sandals with socks – check.
And a book backpack with a water bottle attached – check.

So I'm thinking outdoorsy, Orthodox Jew in his 20s. The combination of which said to me, "Don't initiate physical touch. Be cordial without shaking hands." I think it's important for me to say that I don't always perceive external expressions accurately. In the case of Josh, I later found out through conversations that my perceptions were correct.

Josh enrolled in the program and over the next 18 months or so he and I made several academic connections which eventually led to his graduate research project on the use of experiential education's group initiatives in Hebrew language instruction.

I could not have predicted that my connection with Josh would have been what it was, because for me it was unexpected. What would it mean if we spent time looking for the unexpected connection?

Unearthing the unexpected would give us information about ourselves and the expectations we hold. For me, I also got to look at my assumptions about who Josh was and what he would want. I had assumed that he wouldn't want or respect a woman as an advisor. I was wrong.

Reading, Writing, and Thinking Connect Us

Reading connects us.

When I read the book The Kite Runner, I connected to the desire of a young, well-to-do boy living in Afghanistan, who wants to be accepted by his father, who is trying to connect with his son who seems so different than himself.

Being viewed as ‘other’ means that there are times when folks, including myself, find particular connections an unexpected, yet pleasant surprise!

Reading Octavia Butler's 2005 book Fledgling, I connected to the fear of rejection that comes when those who have been viewed as "other" are the first to "integrate" families.

Our students connect us.

Two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to read the "thinking book" of a second grade student from Sierra Elementary School in Oroville, California, whom I will refer to as "Phia." Phia's thinking book was a combination of words and drawings one would expect to see in a notebook that is used for note taking, class lessons, and journaling. I learned that Phia hit a classmate during recess for saying something that hurt his feelings, and then his classmate hit him back.

Reading Phia's thinking book, I am reminded again that writing provides a haven as well as a way for us to connect what we think and feel with what we know and are trying to figure out. In this case, I got the sense that Phia knew that it wasn't OK to hit someone else. Writing in his thinking book was his way of telling his teacher.

At the same school, I observed a teacher-consultant, Suzanne Linebarger from the Northern California Writing Project, model a lesson on identifying keywords to fifth grade students. They were learning how to understand and summarize complex text by identifying words that they already understood.

Watching that lesson reminded me of the strategy I used earlier in my career, when I was teaching by instinct, without formal preparation on teaching reading and writing skills.

I taught courses in law for years to students who were planning to work in school and community settings. As a group we would spend numerous class periods learning to decipher legal text. Basically looking for keywords to help unlock the meaning of "legalese." One of the reasons I enjoyed teaching this subject matter was that, whether the students were undergraduates or graduates, every semester I would get to witness that magical moment when a student would make the transition from just hearing or reading the words to understanding the meaning— "get it."

Being Curious Out Loud

The desire to find connections is not bound by age, though young folks are much more willing to be openly curious.

I don't know what happens. We get to high school, then we get to college and beyond, and all of a sudden we think it's not okay to be curious "out loud," in front of other people, particularly around those sensitive "issues." So I'm going to tell you a little story about a child who was curious out loud.

Peter was four at the time. Peter, I can tell you, does not appreciate this story. Peter has gone on and graduated from high school and has almost finished college. So we're going to go back to the '80s. His parents were hosting an informal dinner party: there we were, his parents, and maybe five others of us around their dining room table. In this situation adults are talking and Peter's being a very polite young person, sitting quietly and eating.

Then all of a sudden there's that lull in the conversation, you know, the one that just happens from time to time, and Peter decided it must be his time to talk. So he used that lull and piped up really clearly, "Sharon, are you that color all over?"

Now, your response is great; the response at that dining room table was—you would have thought that someone had dropped a bomb. All the other adults, who were white, were looking at the ceiling, looking at each other—anywhere but at me.

So, I thought, I could behave like the other adults—but I decided, nah! What Peter wants is a response because he's just outwardly curious, and I figure he's trying to connect. He's trying to figure out if there is some way to connect what he knows to me. Maybe Sharon's just really tanned. Because he can understand that from his experience.

So I looked at Peter and as I lifted my shirt a modest amount, I said, "You know, Peter, I am." And he goes, "Oh, okay." And he goes back to eating. Meanwhile, my poor friends were still struggling to speak. They're like, "Oh my God, oh my God." And he was just being curious out loud.

Open to the Unexpected

There is nothing more basic than the desire to connect with others. I know that I often connect to the ways a person moves through the world, as well as ideas.

The number of young people who wrote a letter to the next president is a testament to the desire to connect their thoughts about real issues, in "real time," to the next president of the United States.

Writing provides a haven as well as a way for us to connect what we think and feel with what we know and are trying to figure out.

We are living in a time of great connection. Living in a time when millions of people were able to connect across generations, class, language, race and ethnicity, and geographic regions. A time when a nation was able to connect to a message from a man that, for many, was unexpected and welcomed.

I am standing on the shoulders of those who went before. Connected to those who may not have seen the exact path I would walk in my lifetime, but nonetheless knew that what they wanted for me and countless others was to not be bound by their condition of enslavement, but by their hope and determination. Not bound by the limitations of how others may see us, but by the possibility of how we see ourselves. I benefit today because people I know and those that I don't worked and often struggled to make the life I lead possible. Like them, I too am working for a future I cannot see.

Today, right now, this moment, is the time we have to connect. Today I will make a connection to a new idea. Right now I commit to reaching beyond what I currently know. And in this moment, I choose to reside in hope.

Hope that we will continue to connect with others to create policies that support sound practice in the teaching of literacy education across the curriculum in all grades.

Hope that others will increasingly see the connections between effective literacy education today and academic and work life success tomorrow.

Hope that we can continue to make a difference in our schools for the betterment of all students.

As educators we expect that our commitment to teaching and learning connects us. Connections with people are precious gifts.

Sometimes the connections aren't with other people but with other beings with whom we share this planet. I'm going to close with a short story about the unexpected.

This happened when I was an undergraduate at Ohio State. I was setting off to jog from my college apartment down to Tuttle Park, and back again. The loop was about two miles. Now there had been reports over the previous several months that after dark, Tuttle Park wasn't necessarily the safest place for a woman to be, particularly a single woman out jogging. So I said, I'll jog early in the morning, because somehow in my mind I had decided that people who mean ill-will don't get up early. They just don't.

So I'm jogging, and I will tell you that the jog to Tuttle Park was downhill, so the hardest part of the jog was going to be the second half, going uphill. So I'm jogging, I'm feeling pretty good about it. It's about 6:30 in the morning. And I start coming through Tuttle Park, and all of a sudden, I see a man get up off of a park bench and start walking toward me. It's about a hundred yards or so, and I'm thinking, "Uh-huh. Do I quickly turn around and go the other direction? Don't show fear. What should I do here?"

All the while I kept moving forward and now it's about fifty yards. And I'm like, "hmm. I think I still have enough kick in me, he doesn't look so sharp, you know, he looks a little out of shape." So I'm running along and out of nowhere this large German shepherd dog comes running over to me as though it had been doing something over in the bushes and had come back to me. The man saw the dog come up to me and immediately shrunk back. And that dog ran with me all the way home. I never saw the dog again.

This experience has stayed with me, because for me it is a wonderful reminder that connections are everywhere, whether they are with people, animals, places, or spirit.

What would it mean if we were open to the unexpected?

We may indeed change the world!