February 2, 2017 - 20:15
In class today we talked about writing as self care, and the last time we remember writing freely in a classroom setting. I realized that the feeliings of inhibition that block me from writing "authentically" mainly stem from the knowledge that my work will be graded. This has been true for me since I began getting grades, in middle school. My uninhibited creative piping gets plugged when I remember the looming future of the number value my professor or teacher will assign to my written thoughts. I freeze. I read back over my work and check for coherence, grammar, structural integrity. It feels like the teacher is looking over my shoulder, and I become so self-conscious that my flow is shattered.
My most recent memory of authentic flow while writing for school was a few weeks ago, when my Peace Justice and Human Rights professor asked us to write, in any format, about our ideal classroom environment. This would not be a graded assignment--the only thing that factored into my GPA was completion. For almost the first time since beginning university, I felt my mind freeflowing into my written words, and it was easy and natural.