At the end of the spring semester, I was reading graduate teaching assistants’ course evaluations when I came across a comment from a student that made me think about what makes a successful classroom. The student wrote “I dislike school, but your class was enjoyable and made coming to school worthwhile.” On the surface, this comment offers no insight about some grand pedagogical innovation on the part of the instructor that captured this student’s attention and changed their attitude about school. Notice the student still dislikes school. Yet, there was something that happened in that class, some kind of “worthwhile” connection that kept that student coming back day after day and making the effort to be a student. The student’s statement gave me pause. What, I wondered, was the draw in a writing course focused on neurodiversity and rhetoric, a course where multiple students mentioned in their evaluations how challenging the course was but also how much they appreciated it. I keep coming back to “making a connection.” Did this student make a connection with the instructor? The topic? A reading? The writing assignment? The classroom culture? A smile that acknowledged their presence? Or some combination from this list? 

When I reflect on the classes that have been my most successful, they have almost always been classes where students connected strongly to some aspect of the class. It’s not always a connection to me (every now and then that happens), but there’s usually some aspect of the class—maybe it’s a guest speaker, or an essay, or a nontraditional project like the Critical Language Awareness project in Katie Cheng’s class or the Louisville-based podcasts in Mackensi Crenshaw’s class (you will read about both in this issue)—that engages students so much that they keep coming back. They commit to doing the work. Often, that connection involves giving students a larger voice, respecting the expertise they bring into the classroom, helping them understand that disagreement and respect are not mutually exclusive. Making connections allows us to be more resilient, to take risks, to embrace learning, to listen, to reflect, to create, to play, and sometimes to fail. But because we are connected, we commit to keep coming back because something worthwhile is happening.

While educators at every level and across the country are under attack to the point that many are leaving the classroom, and many of us do not receive the support we would like to have, what remains clear to me is that something worthwhile is happening inside our classrooms. We know that when students make a connection to school, a text, an assignment, a topic, a teacher, there is a spark that keeps them and us—yes, educators as well as students, coming back. We educators need to experience those connections as much as our students do. The Bread Loaf Teacher Network (BLTN) is one of the most important connections for me. It brings me joy, energy, and inspiration. It keeps me coming back. I invite you to come with me.

Let’s stay connected!

Dr. Beverly J. Moss is Director of the Bread Loaf Teacher Network. She is also Professor and Director of Second Year Writing at The Ohio State University.