Dangerous Writing

Here is what Tom Spanbauer says about the art of teaching (found here: http://www.dangerouswriting.org/tom-spanbauer.html )
If you asked my mother how she made pie crust, she never said a word. Instead, she just lifted her hand and rubbed her fingers against her thumb. That's the way it is for me and teaching. It has a feel. I'm not someone who knows and the student is someone who does not know. Each person who is a student of writing is a student of life. I too am a student. Good writers know that about themselves. My job as a teacher is to first create a safe environment. It is a terrifying thing to bring your inner life out of the closet and read it aloud to a group. Secondly, I must listen for the heart break, the rage, the shame, the fear that are hidden within the words. Then I must respect where each individual student is in relation to his or her broken heart and act accordingly. Most of all, at the beginning, as a teacher, I must give the permission to do it wrong. In the wrongness there is a treasure. If a wrong note is played long enough, the dissonance can become the speech of angels. And last, I think, and most important, but important because it is last, when my relationship with the student is solid, and when the student has a strong foothold in his or her writing, I bring out my jungle red fingernails, play the devil's advocate, be the bad cop, the irreverent fool--whatever it takes to teach perseverance, self-trust, and discipline. Because I encourage excellence, and each of us has our own excellent, and excellence only comes with not being afraid of who you are. To learn to speak your truth honestly with a clear voice takes lots of practice, and every trick in the book to keep you going down the arduous, cruel, lonely, glorious path of a writer.