Welcome to the Classroom Narratives Healing and Education podcast, the space where education
meets resilience. I'm Joey Weisler, and in each episode, we dive deep into the personal stories
of educators, students, leaders, and frontline advocates who are navigating the complexities
of modern education. Whether you're just starting your teaching journey, or are a seasoned
professional looking for inspiration, we'll explore how to foster meaningful change, prevent burnout,
and build trauma-informed communities in our schools. Now, let's take a seat at the front of
the classroom and get started. Today we have a very special guest, Enma Leyva. Enma has been a high
school English teacher for 17 years in Broward County, Florida, and has dedicated her career to
helping students express themselves through writing, even when facing personal struggles. So
Enma and I are also university colleagues, and I invite her onto the podcast due to her revolutionary
approach in writing and literacy instruction. Welcome, Enma. Thank you so much, Dr. Weisler.
It's so great to have you here with us. So Enma has worked with hundreds of students. I mean,
just this year alone, she has borderline 300 students altogether, and works to guide each
of them through the writing that takes place in her classroom. And Enma and I, a couple years ago,
were talking about a theorist whose name is Tim Gillespie, and his article called, "Why Literature
Matters", argues that high school English classrooms tend to "miss the boat", because even
though there is a state exam at the end of the year, we still implement this very cold and standard
and even emotionless approach to literary instruction. And the way that we teach stories
are literally to the book. And what Gillespie argues is that students would find so much better
success in literacy instruction if they focused on the element of empathy that our stories provide,
especially through their characters. So Enma, I wanted to ask to start with what types of stories
matter in your classroom and how? How do they matter? What can you also share for other teachers
who work with literary pedagogy or literary instruction? I think that the stories that
matter the most in the classroom are the stories about struggle and the overcome of that struggle.
My students really enjoy the stories about the bad boys. You know, we have books like The Outsiders,
which was written so long ago, and it's still one of the most popular books throughout the United
States. And so students like the story of a struggle, the story of an underdog, and those
characters overcoming their challenges, overcoming their obstacles, and maybe not transforming
completely. So stories that have real characters in them that mirror life and come out on top,
not perfection, but again, better than where they started. Those are the best kind of stories.
We really build this facade of success in real life, but literature tries to show that the
struggle is real. There's a lot of growth that we need to go through in order to find some element
of what we would consider to be success in our own lives. And I mentioned this in a prior podcast
with Pat Zwasta, for those who want to go back and listen, where we talk about the element of
fulfilling the dream and finding fulfillment over burnout. And I mentioned that podcast episode,
The Wizard of Oz, where we have Dorothy that is going through this yellow brick road,
and she thinks she's going to find her dream until she realizes that the wizard who can help her
reach her goal is only someone who's behind their smoke and mirrors. We had to let our students know
that there's so much that literature offers in terms of helping them through their own growth,
even though they may have a much larger road to go through in terms of finding their own success.
I agree with you. And growth is gradual. Just like writing, there's a process. There's no magic
button. And we always have to give ourselves grace, not just our characters. We give our characters
grace all the time. We become interested in them. We root for them and we grant them grace.
We say things like, oh, but they went through this. So we should consider. So why can't we give our
selves grace? That's why literature matters. It teaches us to give others grace. And hopefully,
if we pause and we're mature to give ourselves grace. That is for sure. The hero's journey that
each of us follow in our own lives is very real. And it can only be successful if we are kind,
and disciplined with ourselves when going through it. Tell us about a story that you use in the
classroom or like a novel where you've noticed that students have very emotional reactions
to the characters and transfer that back into their own lives.
Oh my goodness. One of my favorite novels to read is Anthem. It's a futuristic society where they
have lost everything, but the most important thing that they've lost is knowledge. The whole book is
a struggle. It's literally a gigantic inner struggle on every other page because the character
wants to be a part of the brotherhood and the society, but they're battling who they really
are, which is a smart, gifted individual. And I feel that the fact that the entire story is an
inner struggle really touches my students because they're going through so many different types of
inner struggle, but they're all going through a type of inner struggle. So that's more difficult
to just kind of accept that I'm going through an inner struggle and you're going through an inner
struggle and we're both going through something that's really the same, just different details.
Absolutely. You're reminding me of one of my favorite books as well, which is The Giver by
Lowry. And you're talking about Anthem by Ayn Rand, by the way. And The Giver by Lowry is
almost like the middle school version of that where we have a 12-year-old boy named Jonas who's
going through this society that has chosen to call it what it is, turn socialist, and eliminate
everything and make everyone feel equal and just get rid of differences and implement what they
would call to be sameness. The significance of the story is that Jonas, the protagonist, is the only
character in the entire society other than his predecessor who is able to actually feel and
acknowledge the existence of differences. And in implementing sameness, it reflects on the educational
institution how creativity is diminished. It shows the consequences of what happens when that element
is replaced. And it makes us also question how social structure works when we choose to either
promote or limit our own freedoms. And this particular text is also really great for students
because as they go through this society that, for example, got rid of the word love, the emotion of
love doesn't exist. And when Jonas, this protagonist, turns to his own father and says,
father, I learned what love is. Do you love me? The father says, I don't know. I enjoy you.
But love isn't a thing. And there's so many different types of emotional reactions a reader
can ironically get from that experience. And when we put The Giver side by side with Ayn Rand's
Anthem, it leads us to question, how do knowledge and emotions work inside a classroom like yours?
The way that knowledge works is application. There's a lot of numbers in education right now.
There's a lot of data. And we have to remember that at the end, it has to result in application
and building relationships. So if we only think about numbers and data and the end goal,
and not the journey that we've gone through to get to that goal, then what are we really doing
with that knowledge? Because if we don't apply it to our everyday lives, and if we don't build
relationships based on that knowledge, then really, what are we doing with it? I believe that's a
great question to contemplate because other than keeping the data in the filing cabinet, some of
us don't know what to do with it. But as a result, trauma and burnout have become big topics in
education. Could you share a specific story or insight from your experience that highlights the
impact of these challenges on both students and educators? Absolutely. So I have students do things
for the home as well. I have the students communicate with their parents throughout the
year. So I'm not the only communicator. They have to tell their parents. And I tell them all the
time. At any time, if I called them, I said, hello, I'm calling about little Samantha or whoever it is.
Are you aware that they have a big project? I expect your parents to know. So I really encourage
communication on all levels, not just me speaking to the parent, but the students speaking to their
parents. I do a lot of journaling. I think journaling really, really helps my students.
And when we're participating in the literary fair, so this is a big thing with burnout, right?
You've got to do things in your classroom that are fun, that you as a teacher think are fun. Yes,
we have to do curriculum based things, but we have to do things that we really consider fun.
One of the things I consider fun is participating in the literary fair. And here in Broward County,
they have so many options and so many categories. And I tell the students, the only way you're going
to win is if you open up your heart and really write the best that you can.
And I go, and in order for you to write the best that you can, yes, of course, it's going to come
from your brain, but your heart has to participate in this practice. I've been very blessed. I've had
winners that have gone to the literary fair, not just school level, but district level throughout
the years. And it's a very exciting thing. They win here at school, they get a certificate or a
prize of some sort, and then they go to the district literary fair and they've won trophies.
So they've gone with their parents and it's just a big honor. Like, wow, I am the best, for example,
Haiku writer in all of Broward County. There's thousands of kids in Broward County. It's one of
the biggest counties in the United States. And so when they win in that category, it's amazing.
And that's one way I build relationships with them in the classroom. I've also done journaling as
well, and there have been a few students within my own classes where we've done something called the
monthly self-care balance journal. And it really acts as a self-care challenge where every 30 days,
it's on the first of every month, I ask students to submit some kind of multimodal artifact,
however they want to see it, even at the college level when I do this, the only wrong way to do
this, the only wrong way to do this assignment is to not even try. Some multimodal submission that
shows what they've done to focus on their own wellness beyond the academics within the past 30
days. So on November 1st, which is coming up, they're going to tell me everything that they did in
October to accomplish that. And I'd love to see joining clubs. I'd love to see community service.
I'd love to see volunteer and even having a picnic with your family, putting your phones away and
talking to a sibling and having those interactions that go well beyond the classroom. And in my
practice of doing these journals back in 2019, I was actually very much easily able to catch the
students who were courageous enough to put into their writing or vulnerable, if you want to say,
hey, you know what, I don't really have any friends. I'm eating alone at lunch and I'm trying to work
towards that. And it gave me an in, if you will, to try and build a partnership with them as a way
to make sure that they got the guidance that they needed to succeed and they're at a classroom
spaces as well, because we need to build those social skills as well. Before we started our
recording here, you're recording this afternoon from your own classroom and you walked me through
your classroom and you showed me that for at least 16 years, you have been decorating with different
character traits because that's so important to you. How do you use or rather infuse character
traits in your own classroom that sustains itself on literature and writing? And what can other
teachers learn from that in terms of trying to bring those ideas into their own strategies?
Well, the humanities literature is all about empathy, kindness, character. I'm a great
lover of history and every story that I find, every informational piece, every poem, any type
of genre, I look for character first. I have to be honest, that's like one of the top five things
up there with the standards and up there with all of the things that we're supposed to do.
I think of what character trait does this story instill? Citizenship, responsibility, fairness,
graciousness, trustworthiness. I'm always looking at an ethical angle. So when I teach literature,
I always start with the ethical angle. During Black History Month, I teach not just about
American history, but Black history in general. And one of the characters that I teach my students
about, the humans that I teach about, is Nelson Mandela. And I speak about resilience and I speak
about strength. I teach them about Malala. I teach them about compassion and tolerance.
I remind them, look at what's going on in the world all over again. And this was after Malala.
Wow, a decade after this young girl got shot. Why are these things happening again? It's a lack of
tolerance. We'll start with the word tolerance. It's a lack of compassion. So I'm always looking
at character traits in everything that my students read, because I think that is one of the most
important lessons, if not the most important. Absolutely. Thank you so much for all of that.
And if there could be one takeaway that our listeners can gain from our conversation today,
what would you want them to know? The world is brighter than it looks. I think that sometimes
we're drowning as educators and maybe even as people in general, that we don't make enough money
or that we can treat ourselves or provide for our children or ourselves the way that we want to.
But the materialistic will never win over the non-materialistic, right? The things that we
provide that live on and on. So the world is brighter than it looks. And if we use communication
effectively and if we have empathy for others, then the world will be even more and more bright.
And as Enma has offered already, the English classroom is the perfect space to focus on how
writing can produce welcomed emotions by our students for our teachers to strengthen those
partnerships. And of course, in the coming seconds, we will have significantly more in-depth
discussions as to how that can be done. So you'll definitely want to stick around.
Anma, thank you again so much for joining us today and for sharing all of your insights.
And thank you again for sharing all the work that you have done within your classroom. And for those
listening, remember to take care of yourself and your students and let us continue to keep building
spaces where stories of resilience and healing can all thrive. Thank you for joining us on the
Classroom Narratives Healing and Education Podcast. If today's episode inspired you or made you think
differently, I'd love to hear from you. Drop a comment or review wherever you listen to podcasts
and stay connected with us on the at Classroom Narratives Podcast over Instagram and Facebook.
Remember, together we can transform our scars into stars in education. One conversation
at a time.