Liz Warren | Storyteller

I’ve been educating graduate students in physical therapy for over 20 years now, but I am still keen to improve my own teaching skills. My husband, Paul, had been talking up the storytelling curriculum at South Mountain Community College for so long, that I thought it was great for him when he announced he planned to take one of the classes, Personal Storytelling, this fall. What surprised me was what popped out of my mouth: “Why don’t I take it with you?” I had intended to take a dance class, but it just wasn’t working out, and I had this sudden epiphany that perhaps storytelling could actually benefit me as a teacher. It could, and in this short time it already has, and I am sure it will continue to benefit me in ways as yet unseen. I’ve been exposed to something really meaningful and positive and fun in this class; and I am grateful to Liz Warren and all of our classmates for contributing to this.

Since we have been thinking about personal experiences that can be the foundation for stories, I’ve been reflecting on different life events, mainly from my early childhood. However, my interest in storytelling as a way to enhance my teaching skills has also led me to reflect on my career as a teacher. I actually had a one-year foray into teaching before I ever intended to pursue an academic path. I was a licensed physical therapist and loved my work with adults and children with stroke, traumatic or congenital brain injury. Teaching was not in my career plan. But the love that Paul and I both have for travel led us to sign on for a year teaching English at Zheijang University in Hangzhou, The People’s Republic of China.

Teaching was not going to be too stressful for Paul – after all, he had a Master’s Degree in Education and a couple of years of teaching inner-city high school students under his belt. But I felt like I was in way over my head.  However, once we were a bit settled into our life in China and learned what our classes would be, I began to relax and get excited for teaching. I was going to be teaching a current events class, which entailed reading English language newspapers and magazines with the students to help them improve their vocabulary and reading comprehension. Another class assigned to me was conversational English – I could definitely do that! 

But the one class that had me worried was a very basic English class for students I could only describe as the Chinese version of Dumb Jocks.  Yes, there were athletes on scholarship at the university. Despite having learned English from the time they started primary school, these students had clearly not learned much beyond shouting embarrassingly loud “Hellos” every time they saw me. The administrators had apparently decided that I would be the best one to teach this class since they had construed “physical therapist” to mean that I somehow worked with athletes. Well, these students did not disappoint in the stereotyping department – they did not understand a word I said, no matter how slowly (or loudly!) I spoke. I had to seriously re-adjust my expectations and draw on all of my theater skills, which had fortunately included pantomime.

Yet in spite of our limited ability to communicate, friendships came quickly and easily. I soon realized that each of these students had a unique personality: some had a great sense of humor, others were so sweet, and many were amazingly creative. These students started to show up at our apartment on Saturday mornings, ready to take us on a day of exploring in nature or in the city. They also wanted me to understand the sport they excelled at and I soon found myself excited to watch them do what they were so talented at. They turned out to be an unexpectedly delightful group – they made me laugh at them and with them.

The joy of sharing cultures and languages, and in particular teaching that class was one of many surprises that year. One disturbing and sad surprise was the sudden political turn in the spring of 1989, when the Tiananmen Square incident occurred and promptly altered our carefree and open life in communist China to one where students were afraid to be seen with us, and everyone seemed to be watching everyone else. But a joyful and more personal surprise came at the end of that spring semester, when I (the only non-teacher among the foreign language teachers) was awarded “Foreign Teacher of the Year” at our institution. Perhaps being tasked with teaching the Dumb Jocks and somehow making a success of it figured in to that decision. (Or maybe the administration just felt real guilty saddling me with those students and wanted to make up for it!) However, what they probably never knew was that what I had dreaded the most became the greatest joy in my inaugural year as a teacher.

(The image at the top shows Pam with her students. Below is Pam and her husband, Paul Bosch)