If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.
— Charlie Parker from Hear Me Talkin’ to Ya: The Story of Jazz As Told by the Men Who Made It by Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff
I entered teaching as a writer, and remain one. I had spent 10 years as a journalist and the habits of writing every single day stuck with me even as I changed careers. In my first year in the classroom, I was fortunate to connect with the National Writing Project, where I found its philosophies of “teachers teaching teachers” and “teachers as writers” to be inspirational.
You can often find me sitting in the midst of my students, writing alongside them. I talk through approaches, mourn dead ends, and celebrate moments of epiphany. They view me as a writer as much as a teacher, and in doing so, I hope to unveil the mysteries and messiness of a writing life, and the ways it can fulfill and sustain you, too.
The quote from jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker, words which are also the tagline of my blog, can be read in a few different ways. If you know of Parker’s complicated life, the phrase takes on deeper meanings. But on one level, he was referring to how the experience of a lived life influenced the improvisational music he played.
For me, as a teacher and writer, Parker’s words encapsulates the idea that a teacher of writing must be writing, too. I write to encourage my students’ writing. I share to encourage their sharing. I am learning right along with them. The words that come “out of my horn” are ones that first have a home in my heart.
Kevin Hodgson
Kevin Hodgson is a sixth grade teacher in Massachusetts, saxophone player, and a teacher-consultant with the Western Massachusetts Writing Project.
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