What I Learned At The Workshop

I learned something last week at my Memory to Memoir workshop about how others see me. The workshop began back on the first of June and two of the participants chose to carry on through July and into August.
I’ve known for a lifetime that teaching is a two-way street, which is why I love it so much.  Teachers may be hired to educate others, but the best educators keep their eyes and ears open and go on learning for themselves.
This is what my workshop has been for me this summer, as well as the participants, who chose to continue the process of planning, researching, struggling through unhappy memories to come to grips with what they knew they would have to write to tell a true story.
One of the women the other night told me something I already knew but revealing nonetheless.  She said I lacked self-confidence. I certainly did as a kid and at times I still do today. Does anyone reading this feel like they, too, lack self confidence at times?
I had run into this woman on occasion in my reporter’s capacity, especially in my early days on the beat. Teaching had been one thing. I was comfortable in my classroom and on my own turf, but a reporter’s assignment is different every single day, and you never know where or to whom you’ll be speaking. For a naturally shy guy, becoming a reporter was something I wanted to do.
This same woman has been reading my first book, Waking Up in the Studebaker. “You had plenty of confidence” she said, speaking about my neighborhood, me on my bicycle and in the woods. But inside a classroom or around people, I told her, I wanted to be elsewhere.  Was this a confidence issue or total lack of interest? Play time seemed so much more useful.
She said she had taken the workshop in part because of me. “How does someone like you, who evidently still appears to have a confidence problem, become a teacher, conduct a workshop like this, publish two books, and write for newspapers…?” she asked. “Maybe I could learn something from you about myself.”
I said, “It’s like you read in Waking Up, when I kept my bike parked, sitting on its kickstand in front of my front door facing the street. As soon as I would finish eating, I ran through the living room, pushed the storm door open and jumped on my bike ‘on the fly’ like Roy Rogers on Trigger and off I flew.”
I made up my own games, I made my own fun, and always kept busy all with total confidence. I hated being cooped up indoors and always had to be on the go. Classrooms drove me nuts. Give me a playground, the woods, my bike, and I was in control I told her in so many words.
High school was almost a total loss. I felt like I had no control and little chance to take the classes I wanted and needed for my future. I made to take classes guaranteed to point towards failure.  It took me three attempts to pass geometry, when I had never taken any kind of algebra first. Kansas State College of Pittsburg gave me what I needed, plus a basic, no credit algebra class that helped to start me on the right footing.  Professors allowed more room for exploration, plus I wasn’t cooped up in classrooms all day long.
Confidence boils down to control. At Paola High, my colleagues knew there was the established way, but Kevin proceeded with “Gray’s way.”  I followed the set curriculum but just didn’t seem to teach like the other teachers. I also served as the local Kansas National Education Association president for 16 years. “At first I had been scared to death to take on that challenge, but I jumped in anyway,” I told my workshop participant.
I am discovering how many of my high school classmates, who fit underachiever status like me, pursued the arts as musicians, writers, artists and are continuing to find satisfaction. We all traveled different paths, but we never stopped taking chances and trying new things.
After finishing the manuscript for what would become Waking Up in the Studebaker and On the Strand, I found my old “girl pal” Frankie.  We were good friends from age 12 until we lost touch after I came to Kansas. She is also in both books.  I asked her to describe the Kevin she knew.

Frankie wrote:  “Kind, shy, quiet, and very loyal. You had a dry sense of humor and were ‘on the wild side’ and always ready for something different – always questioning things and authority: REBELLIOUS!!!”  She ended her memory with a telling statement: “You were hard on yourself and did not believe in Kevin.”

Oh I did, alright, but I had to be turned loose first to pursue my life and allowed to do my own thing, whatever that might be.  Only then could I feel confident in myself to find something that smacked of success.

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Posted by Kevin on Aug 19 2010. Filed under Kevin Gray, Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry