When it comes to creative classroom experiences, one would be hard-pressed to find a teacher who delivers that better than Robyn Carter, a writer and prolific innovator who has her fifth graders producing graphic novels and videos. I am in awe of the results—an explosion of imaginative ideas, sights and sounds.

I have been wanting to write about the abysmal pay schedules for teachers, whose compensation is primarily based on classroom time, without regard to the many hours spent at home writing curriculum, grading papers, and developing delivery methods. Maybe that story is best told if I demonstrate the enormity of Robyn’s design process which clearly gobbles up large swaths of unpaid time!

First let me introduce you to Robyn Carter, a fellow alum with an MFA in Fiction from Queens University, who works as a part-time teacher and a free-lance writer–everything from instructional guides to a TV pilot. Her favorite gig has been as an educator in the upper elementary grades there in San Francisco, but she has taught in other venues as well, including instructing in a degree program designed for veterans, and serving as a mentor in the PEN America Prison Writing Program.

Recent work as a San Francisco Writers Corps Teaching Artist in Residence has included instructing a class of fifth grade students who are mostly second language learners, and where 5-6 home languages are represented in her classroom. In this challenging environment, Robyn encourages thinking, writing, and presentation skills far beyond what we normally see even in high school classrooms.

Robyn introduces her students to writing forms like the graphic novel because the kids are inspired by the combination of words and visuals; add in videos and they have sound and movement. The students work with a variety of tools, including group discussions and guided writes that help them anchor abstract ideas to specific words and images. They keyboard scripts, draw cartoon characters on a whiteboard, work with Canva to find background and music, and add voice-overs.

At this point my descriptive skills fail me. Even as a writer and a teacher myself, I can’t find adequate ways to communicate Robyn’s worth as an educator. The best way to demonstrate the enormity of her creative journey is to have you view some of the videos she has posted to her home blog. My favorite was the animated poem, “Sky Fever,” but all of the videos are amazing and far-beyond my expectations. https://room2ruminations.home.blog

As you watch the videos, I also ask you to calculate in your mind how many extracurricular hours were required for Robyn to design and lay out each phase of this complex classroom program—the step-by-step building of her students’ knowledge and skills. It would have taken many hours more than she was compensated, of this I am certain.

As citizens, don’t we want this quality of teaching for every grade?

As citizens, aren’t we willing to pay for this creativity?

Jonnie Martin

POST SCRIPT: Impressed with the work of the students? Please let Robyn know in comments below. Next week? I write about Lawrence Wright’s new critique of his adopted home of Texas.