I wish I could say my experience with the writing partnership had been wonderful, amazing, fantastic, or any other adjective in that realm, but unfortunately, I cannot. All I ended up receiving was a week-late first draft of the autobiography, and all I received for comments on my work was something akin to, "It's good. I couldn't really find anything to fix." I tried to be encouraging, letting my student know that I was looking forward to reading his work, and also told him when I sent my last draft that I would still love to read his second draft when (I very purposefully used the word "when", as opposed to "if") he completes it. I haven't even received a response. Naturally, I can't help but assume this is a student who just blew off the assignments. I have to remind myself, however, that since I am not the teacher, I really don't have any idea if this is true or not. I have no idea what is going on in this kid's life. In fact, even if I were his teacher, I still might not know what is really going on with him.
That said, I suppose if I've learned anything through this very one-sided exchange, it's that even teachers need to try and free themselves of those assumptions. Yes, there are plenty of students who simply blow their work off, but there are also students who are struggling in some way. It may be educationally, but it may even be something deeply personal that the teacher has no idea about. That makes the assumption that the student purposely neglected to do the work out of laziness a dangerous one. Having this attitude could even exacerbate the problem. If I do go into teaching, I hope that I can remember not to be so quick to make negative assumptions about my students.
I wish I had more to say about the exchange, but as I said, it was extremely limited. Even though my experience wasn't exactly wonderful, I am not opposed to the idea of the partnership. I realize this is just one experience and that another experience may have turned out totally differently.
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