Teaching in the Dark: A Memoir by Genét Simone
Shishmaref, Alaska is a remote village on a small island along the coast of the Chukchi Sea, just north of the Bering Strait and 5 miles from the mainland. But when Genét Simone accepts her very first teaching position there, she has no idea what she’s in for — not until the small bush plane she’s on comes in for a landing over a “misshapen lima bean” sitting in the middle of the ocean.
From that moment forth, Simone must deal with all the challenges of being a first-year teacher alongside culture shock, isolation from the mainland and survival in this harsh, unforgiving environment; and as much as Simone has material to teach her students, it seems they have just as much to teach her in kind. A touching memoir filled with life lessons, Teaching in the Dark (Balboa Press) reminds readers of how much we have to learn from each other, and the rewards of rising above challenges and connecting as a community.
We got a chance to talk with the author herself about teaching as a calling rather than a career, and what she hopes readers learn from her inspiring story.
Q: Teaching in the Dark recounts your incredible story of teaching in a remote Alaskan community. What first inspired you to write this memoir?
A: Over the past 40 years, I’ve been sharing stories about Shishmaref with friends and colleagues. They all said the same thing: “You need to write a book!” I tried a few times but didn’t succeed until I started teaching high school again in 2019. I was shocked to learn that, even with 30 years of experience as a teacher educator, I felt like a first-year teacher all over again. That’s when I felt compelled to write this book — to make sense of my time in Shishmaref and also help me negotiate more skillfully working with teens in the 21st Century. I also wanted to thank people in Shishmaref for their kindness. A book seemed like a great way to let them know about the enormous impact their lives and culture has had on me all these years.
Q: You mention a lifelong mission to understand the more emotional and spiritual aspects of teaching. Can you elaborate on this?
A: In my book, I poked fun at the training I endured while earning a teaching certificate — training that included a plethora of content but nothing about how to further develop a healthy sense of self. Teaching is an incredibly emotional profession; every minute, we are managing our own emotions, as well as the emotions of others. Just as important to acknowledge, teaching is a spiritual exercise in seeing the goodness in others, of honoring their spirit, so to speak — of seeing the diamond in the rough. The Latin root for education is Educere, which means to “bring forth.” And I think that implies bringing forth much more than the ability to solve a math problem. It’s a bringing forth of one’s spirit, of one’s purpose as a human being. This is why teaching is a vocation, not just a job. It’s a calling. There is a larger force pulling a person into the profession, which means there is a larger impact being made for generations to come. Yet there is seldom, if ever, any attention paid to those vital aspects of being an educator. That is my mission, to help both myself and others navigate that territory, so we stay in the profession we love.
Q: What was the hardest part of acclimating to Shishmaref?
A: Aside from a lack of running water, private showers and flushing toilets, I think loneliness was the hardest thing for me. Even though I was surrounded by people most of the time, I felt like I didn’t belong. I had a lot of insecurities at that time in my life, especially in a place that was so different from my own upbringing. Except for long walks on the island, I had nowhere to go to process my emotions. It wasn’t until Thanksgiving, when I flew to Nome with a handful of teachers, that I felt my loneliness begin to fade. It never went away entirely, but it was soothed by their companionship.
Q: What’s something people may not know about teaching?
A: Teaching has become an overly-scripted profession. Yet, with all of the curriculum guides, classroom management manuals, assessment programs, etc., teaching is still a profession fraught with uncertainty. Teachers are constantly thinking, “Will this work?” Then; “Did that work?” No matter how much you try to choreograph curriculum, there is no guarantee things will go as planned. It’s like throwing a dinner party every day, but you’re not sure how many guests are coming. Do they approve of the seating arrangement? Will they like the food? Is anyone allergic to anything? Teaching teenagers is even tougher, because they tend to offer little feedback about that dinner — whether they liked it and want leftovers or if they’ll skip tomorrow. As I wrote in my book, “teaching is freaking unpredictable.” Yet, we are measured on progress, as demonstrated by standardized tests. Don’t get me started.
Q: You mention that while you were teaching academic lessons to your students, they taught you lessons of their own. What’s a particular piece of wisdom that’s stuck with you?
A: There was a scene in Chapter 33, “Piece By Piece,” when a student peered over my shoulder at my journal. “What you writing?” she asked. “Just ideas,” I replied. She whispered in my ear, “We have ideas.” Every time I read that line I get goosebumps. Students have ideas too. My job is to help them flesh those out, explore them, keep them, or let them go.
I also learned that students really do want to learn. They love grappling with big questions. They love to play and have fun. When that’s not happening, or when they are confused about my instructions, they get restless. They get bored, and that boredom comes out as resistance. They ask to go to the bathroom, go to the nurse — go anywhere physically or emotionally — to escape their discomfort. So, rather than assuming they’re being lazy, I’m now know to look more carefully at what is going on.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from Teaching in the Dark?
A: While my book details my “coming of age” as a first-year teacher, I touch on things that are common to people in all walks of life: unpredictable circumstances; feeling overlooked or dismissed; making mistakes and getting embarrassed; meeting new people and realizing their foibles as well as their smarts. Holding us all together through all of that is Love. I might have been “in the dark’ a lot of the time, but I also recognized the generosity of others lighting a way forward. In the chapter titled “Looking Into Tomorrow,” I reference Muriel Rukeyser’s poem, “Islands,” and her message that people are not as separate from each other as they might think. We share one planet and have so much to learn and admire. That is the world I want to keep shining a light on, too.
