The Big Project by Peter Kowalke
The day before classes began this spring, I should have suspected a busy semester was ahead. Those of us at the weekly campus newspaper needed to kickoff the start of school, which required putting together an issue in three days. Making an issue in three days was a challenge considering that our staff was inexperienced and returning from winter break, and that we were expected to generate stories without any established system or preexisting set of news contacts. We all were new, in fact, hired progressively throughout last semester. The only bastion of experience was our advisor, who wasn’t particularly in touch with either the paper or the campus. A University of Massachusetts graduate student focusing on creative writing, he neither was a Hampshire College alumni nor frequently available. Nor, for that matter, a journalist. So, we the new staff ran the show. As Editor-in-Chief, it was my job not only to steer the paper in a new direction and shine our tarnished image, but also to keep the paper and its staff functioning as a whole. This first foray for our new group was anything but gradual. We had no choice but to dive in headlong.
Of course, as both the editor and one of only two staffers who had stayed on campus during break, much of the workload fell to my shoulders. Most of the work, in fact. I only had myself to blame, though; putting out an early issue was my idea, as was our “strange” new submission policy where we helped community leaders write articles instead of writing them ourselves. I alone had experience generating a large body of copy on short notice, too. Publishing had been my life as an unschooler before college. I haven’t done a lot of impressive things in my life like some here at Hampshire, but I have run a magazine. I do know the tricks—or at least more of the tricks than my staff.
Putting out the first issue of the semester sapped a lot of energy. The day before classes began I was whirling dervish; one minute I was interviewing a Hampshire faculty member, and the next moment I was on the phone about a submission extension. I could be found loaning my tape recorder to a friend for a last-minute transcription, or rushing through the snow in the dead of night, trying to track down one of our staff photographers for an emergency photo shoot (which was possible by borrowing a digital camera from yet another friend). It was very taxing, and I’m a little surprised I didn’t start drinking coffee as a coping mechanism. I literally didn’t sleep the first two days of class, and thereafter I only got an hour or two a night. We did get the issue to press, though, despite missed classes and a total disregard for my body.
You’d think it was torture. I would have thought it torture. But, instead I found myself loving it. I was in my element.
Just as I had hoped, working for Hampshire’s college newspaper has reignited a spark in my life. Classes are more fruitful and friendships are more robust. My time is more limited, but I do more with what I have and enjoy each moment more. When I don’t have a publication I must run, I’m a little lost and lopsided. My social habits, while strong, feel very nonstandard. My philosophies sometimes take a turn for the unconventional. I procrastinate too much. I worry frequently. I waste a lot of time with menial tasks. And, I’m obsessed with the homeschooler’s burden: proving that homeschooling makes me every bit as intelligent and successful as the kids who went to school. I’m a completely different person when I am editor, though; the role bleeds into all areas of my life, probably because I take the job with such passion. Running a publication changes my mood entirely, even when I’m not working on it.
So, I guess I enjoy publishing. People defend the unschooling model by explaining that unschoolers do what they love and the rest falls into place. The rule seems to hold for me. When I’m publishing, my social scene, my mood, my studies, everything just works—even when it isn’t working, like during the launch of that first college newspaper issue.
Publishing works for me partially because it plays nice with my learning style, I think. I like an all-consuming project that structures my day and consumes the majority of my thoughts, something I can put all my energy into day after day. I like to focus to the point of becoming one with the project to the exclusion of everything else. Putting out a magazine or newspaper definitely fits the bill.
The large, all-encompassing project has been a hallmark of mine for several years now. It predates my work in starting Nation Magazine and even my ability to read. Before college, time was measured in activity. There was the design of board games, an obsession with weight-lifting, the life of a football player. Letter-writing became an early preoccupation, as did comic books and baseball cards, although all at different times. Then came publishing, with Nation Magazine and my poetry syndicate, Spiral Chambers. There has consistently been a central project with which I structure my day, something that instantly sparks fire in my eyes. Publishing has been a cast member in the show, but not the only one.
Looking at my life from a project-based perspective, a few observations surface. One interesting observation is that everything I learn must be immediately applicable. If a connection to the current project isn’t obvious, or use in a future project implied, I have great difficulty remembering or caring about the details. A quick survey of my recent classes illustrates a bias for immediate applicability: Photo I (providing photos for The Forward), Macro/Micro Economics (aiding in the planning of the publication’s monetary future), and Senses, Culture and Power (helping to better represent students in articles for the paper). Even though I’m attending a liberal arts education, I abhor general enrichment in favor of skill-based learning and ideas that I can use now, today, this instant. What I really yearn for are technical classes like “Learning Photoshop” and “Advanced Techniques in Layout.” The desire fades once I’m immersed in whatever class it is I’m taking, but the tendency toward applicability never fades completely; when concepts aren’t tangible or applicable, I invariably try to make them into something that would relate to the project at hand.
A second observation is that the fire in my eyes, the confidence, stems from the opportunity to focus on a particular project to the exclusion of other activities. How can I do truly great work when I’m spreading my thoughts and my time among four or five goals/activities? With one central project, I really can give it my all. My all may still not be spectacular, but it is the best I can muster. And, I can feel excited and driven when doing the best that I can do.
Regardless of whether the style was inborn or a product of my unschooling background, it explains why I’m off-balance when between projects and most content with two hours sleep and fifteen minutes before the new issue of The Forward goes to press. It also explains why I’m attending a school that encourages big projects as learning experiences.
About the author:
A lifelong unschooler, Peter resides in CT with his wife Mae. He is a journalist, free-lance writer, entrepreneur and documentary film-maker. Visit his web site for more:
http://www.grownwithoutschooling.com
By Peter Kowalke. Originally printed in the May-June, 1999 issue of Home Education Magazine.
