Martha and Mary in the Classroom: House vs. Home

                      

            As Luke tells the Biblical story, Martha invited Jesus Christ into her house; but while she was “distracted with much serving”—bustling to serve food and drink to their visitor, Martha’s sister, Mary, “sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching.”  This rankled Martha—she had invited Christ and was doing the hard work of being his hostess—but Mary was the one who could glow in his company.  Jealous of Mary, she went to Christ to complain: “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone?  Tell her then to help me.”  Clearly, Martha was not getting “it.”  Patiently, Christ answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things; one thing is needful.  Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her” (Luke: 10:38-42).

            I was Martha on the night I invited a dear friend to speak to my Emily Dickinson class.  On the desk, I placed a vase full of white flowers as a gift to her, and as a way to brighten our classroom for her visit. For half an hour before she started her presentation, I distributed and coached my students through filling out 10-page sheaves of university release forms for a tour of Amherst on which I was hoping to take us. On collecting those, I distributed copies of former students’ Dickinson papers to inspire their own. Told them we would workshop next time and when their papers were due. I resented the bureaucrazies I had to orchestrate and having to play the disciplinarian mother.  My friend waited patiently.  At last she was able to start a presentation. 

            She was, as always, luminous.  Without a teacher’s agenda, she was able to share her personal connection to Dickinson and to open the discussion to whatever direction it wanted to take.  I loved her presentation—her passion, range of feeling, wisdom, and her own poetry.  I loved how freely the students engaged with her and with each other. And yes, I know that my being Mary with them most of the time, eased the way. But I am most grateful for her presentation because this time she inspired me to reflect on how administrative structures—pitched to assessment, filling out forms, student retention, and what I address as “the litterbox theory of education: coverage and control”—how these pressure me into being more of a Martha than I care to be.

            In my posts, I am fierce for helping students recover their love of reading, their innate capacities for original thought, their freedom from draconian educational practices.  I am devoted to teaching students, not subject—to focusing on awakening, not the stupor of the conventional pedagogical grind. But focused on them, I was not paying sufficient attention to what I have lost, in over 40 years of teaching in institutions. To liberate myself, I know, is to model that to students—the most potent do-as-I-do way of teaching.

            In my next class, a Shakespeare Survey the following morning, I went Mary—enjoying “the good portion.”  We chatted—not discussed—the school production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which we had all seen.  I did not steer how the conversation went, but occasionally participated in it.  I could feel the Martha coming up in me—remind them of Fallon’s aspects of staging; make sure to reference the text for changes in language…and stopped myself.  This was not about me. I also avoided responding to every comment a student made—the having the last word that co-opts most student comments in classes—stealing their proverbial thunder. I let myself enjoy their pleasure in the performances and in how well they remembered details and amplified each other’s insights.  I let them have themselves.

            Martha is about housekeeping.  If we riff on Velázquez’s painting “Christ in the House of Martha and Mary,” we can see that Martha, in the foreground, is literally grinding away at chores.  In front of her are fish and eggs—symbolic of the sperm and ova that represent conception and child-bearing. An old woman hovers over her, pointing a judgmental finger of gender.  Like the garlic and hot pepper, Martha’s life stinks and bites right now—and she’s scowling.  Her hair is covered, and her brows furrowed.  In a world that prefers right dominance, she is thrown to the left side of the canvas.

            The only exit from this prison is the pass-through (for it isn’t even a door through which Martha might walk).  We can see Mary, in the distance, her hair symbolically down.  She’s enjoying the presence of the treasured guest, who is not only paying attention to her, but blessing her. She is swaddled in a golden shawl. She is, literally, in the right.

            I’m rethinking the assignments for all my classes. Time to give Martha a break—enough housekeeping, coverage, and control.  I’m naming the Martha teacher game, first—vigilant moves such as scolding of any kind, micromanaging checklists for discussions and group work, quizzes, spoon-feeding students, emphasizing being right, having to have students agree—all those things that speak of STOP.

            I want to be in the living room to enjoy the good portion—to be homies, the favorite aunt who can spoil her nieces and nephews, instead. I’m kick-starting the assignments for my courses to foreground what matters—the less assessible the assignment, the better.  The less about testing whether students remember what they’re supposed to remember—the more about what they do find memorable.  Toss out the rubrics, bring in light and air—meaningful engagement with literature and writing. To riff on an adage—“Let go and let Good.”

            In The Nag Hammadi Library, the gospels that didn’t make the cut into the synoptic Bible, Christ says in “The Gospel of Thomas”: “Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate” (6). Try being a part of an institution and live by that! Eek! But that’s a blog for another day.

            Just saying: We are fortunate that Dickinson left school before her Martha could take over.

            I had originally ended this post asking "How are your teachers more Martha than Mary?"  But Sara Faulkner, in her reply below, cogently argued that it was a leading question~very Martha, indeed.  So I am rephrasing the question, as Sara suggests, to this: Are your teachers Martha or Mary? (Make that an inclusive "or," which means that they can be both Martha and Mary.) In what specific ways? What’s the balance of Martha and Mary in you?  How do we recover?

Works Cited

Cover Art: Velázquez, Diego. “Kitchen scene with Christ in the house of Martha and

Mary,” 1618.

Luke: 10:38-42

“The Gospel of Thomas.” The Nag Hammadi Library. New York: Harper, 1978.

The Bliss of Marking Papers

        

        So the way I like to tell the story, the disciples approach Jesus and say, "Hey. We want to get this enlightenment thing.  Do we tear our clothes? Do we eat gluten-free? Do we confess that we cheated on our taxes?"  And Jesus says, (and what follows is for real): "Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate." This is from the Gospel of Thomas in The Nag Hammadi Library, a series of scriptures found buried in urns that didn't make the cut for the Bible as we know it.  No wonder: Don't tell lies? Don't do what you hate? Institutions~whether family, school, church, government, business, or the local book club~would not exist unless we lied and did what we hated. Truly, think about it.  We all specialize in sailing down The River Denial. We lie to ourselves. We lie to each other.  And we drudge through things we hate. So the founders of the early church were not about to give these truth-telling gospels air time.

        So if what Jesus is purported to have said is the key to enlightenment, this means that teachers marking papers are destined for hell~or, at the very least, wrecked weekends and no time to watch "Lost" or "The Voice."  Because traditional ways of marking papers~copy-editing and co-writing student papers; assigning  numerical grades to everything; tabulating for report cards~are boring and onerous. The only way to keep doing it is to lie and do what you hate.

       In the beginning of my career, I truly hated marking papers, and I assumed the position that I just LOVED it~bled all over my students submissions (yes, that's the word for it) first in red ink, then in green (as if that was more "with it"), then in carbon pencil. I pored over every word as if it were the proverbial gospel truth.  I would end up putting more effort into responding, and often lay down more footage, than they did.

       Then I enrolled in a post-doc MFA program for poetry, and my over-zealous mentor bled all over one of my essays. I was a published author by then, had blissfully written a dissertation (no lie), was truly engaged in learning, and for a month I couldn't even read all the comments.  I couldn't revise.  I felt as though she had co-opted my work.  I was disenfranchised~literally, had lost my freedom of thought. If I was so affected, what about students who are insecure and discouraged~and therefore rebellious?

        WOW!  All those months and months of moiling over student papers~an agonizing, futile, backfiring waste. Then I read The Nag Hammadi Library.  Ever since, I have lived by that quote: "Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate."  OK.  I approximate that as best I can, so I can still have students to teach and draw a salary that allows for massages. I also teach students to not tell lies and not do what they hate. Yes. Read on.

       Surely, it is worthwhile to review how students are thinking, learning, "progressing."  As I have grown as a teacher~and learn how to support their creative and critical thinking~the papers have become much more engaging.  But still.  So I ask myself these questions:  What exactly do I hate about marking papers?  How am I telling myself and my students lies?  I ask the students corollary questions: "Do you hate writing papers?  If so, why? How are you living a lie with them?" Then I ask, "How can we do this so that we can tell the truth and love what we do?"

       From my point of view: I hate stacks of papers~they overwhelm me.  I hate marking every error.  I hate reading unreadable work. Students hate being isolated from each other. They hate writing papers that don't reflect who they are. That's a whole other topic, but focusing on marking papers, here are some strategies that helped me transform our experience.  And the guy was right~the teaching and the learning got much, much better.

      (1) For all assignments, we focus on audience and reader engagement.  I draw a line where I become disengaged in a paper. This is far more helpful and awakening than the lie of plodding on. I will ask, "Did you write this in a rush? Resent it? Not care? Why?"  The ensuing discussion is where the learning happens.  Then I send the student back to write a real paper.

      (2) This is important~we learn what we do.  I don't need practice in revising their papers for students.  THEY do.  Either for themselves or for each other. (And fragments can be more effective than "complete sentences.")  See (3). I will identify an error pattern, but not do the work of finding all of the instances of it.  I find ways to encourage them to teach each other.

      (3) We respond to assignments in person. This truly solves the problem of leaning towers of spilled papers. I will put the paper on an overhead projector, either on a tray or digitally.  Looking at the same screen is a powerful communal act.

      (4) We do workshop the first pages of first drafts. "Yes but the good stuff is on page 3!"  "Well then, bring it to the front.  It's your job to get and keep us engaged."  

      (5) On submission days, students gather in groups of four to read and respond to each other's papers, while I one-on-one privately for grades.  KNOW THIS: we can all tell by a quick look where a paper is going.  Study the literature, not their papers. I ask students to tell me what their peers said.  They report back to the groups what I said.  It might take more than one day.  But we're done.  

      (6) Students come to me with a proposed grade, referring to criteria that I sometimes give them, sometimes have them develop together.  It's rare that a student is off by more than a plus or minus.

       The Benefits: No stacks.  Students get immediate responses and ideas for revisions.  They practice writing and reading for audience. They teach each other (which is the best way to learn).  We tell each other the truth, and we do what we love~exercise the power of language and community.

       "Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate."  How can you be more authentic in the classroom?  How can you find bliss in your life?

                                

  

© 2014 Susanna Rich