I love stories. The heroes, the villains, the damsels in distress, the damsels causing distress, the exotic places, the familiar places, the new ideas, the traditional values, the different perspectives...everything about stories appeals to me.
And I don't discriminate about how stories are told. I like classics, novels, comic books, paperbacks, video games, movies, tv shows, youtube sensations, magazines, tabloids, newspapers. If it tells a story, I will devour it.
Stories hold the answers to the questions we don't yet know we have. Whatever the conflict, the antagonist, the setting, the need, the desire, the emotion, the event, there is a story with a character that has experienced what we are experiencing, who has defeated the villain we are facing, and who has overcome the challenge that threatens our success. They allow us to see perspectives we are not aware exist, and they pull us into experiences we would never otherwise have.
My favorite stories are fairy tales. GK Chesterson wrote, "Fairy tales do not tell children dragons exist. Children already know the dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children dragons can be killed."
Our dragons don't have scales and breathe fire. Our dragons are poverty, illiteracy, broken homes and broken dreams, limiting expectations, and faltering hope. The effects are more devastating than flames and their appearance is more intimidating than armor.
Stories, literature, language arts, and grammar are more than entertainment (or punishment). Words are weapons and knowledge is power. My mission as a teacher is to model to my students the relevance and relatability of the English classes that most of them discount as worthless.
When they leave me, I want my students to know the world is bigger than their small circle, they can create a future that is better than their past, and the ambitions they are afraid to admit are attainable. They may never use a plot diagram or a sentence diagram again, but they will know how to discern truth from lies, how to develop their own ideas and beliefs rather than follow in blind compliance what others dictate, and that they are entitled to and responsible for ownership in their lives and decisions.
Everyone has a story, and every story has a hero. We can wait for someone else to come along and rescue us, or we can save ourselves.
Ms. Beard
