Writing a Novel About Teaching and Learning

I’m writing a novel, my first fiction in years.

It’s totally different than anything I’ve done. I’m not quite ready to put a formal announcement on the site. But I’ve been thinking about how to share progress along the way, and this is the first time I’m saying any of it “out loud” in writing.

The Premise

It’s set in a future world. I have this whole idea about teaching and learning versus schooling: they’re two different processes. School is a place, but teaching and learning is a human thing that we do. The novel imagines a future designed around how I think teaching and learning should actually work, told through an almost-utopian community.

It’s a lot about community mentors and learning in the real world, about how a person can be seen more in the learning process, and about how a community takes collective responsibility for teaching the younger generations while also learning from them in turn.

The Mentor and the Mentee

I’m telling the story through a pair, a mentor and a mentee, moving through this space together. Some of what they encounter along the way is the point. It’s not a perfect world, and the challenges they meet show what could be different about how we approach teaching and learning.

Why Fiction, Not Nonfiction

I made a conscious choice to tell this as fiction rather than write a nonfiction book that’s more preachy and says, here’s how I think it should be. I’m telling it through these characters, so you can see it, interact with it, and feel it. And then you can ask: what does that mean for change in the world?

Bringing People In

One part of the work is going to be inviting people from my own personal community to give feedback. I’m planning to host an event at my house to gather reactions to what I have so far. Fiction is new for me, and I want the people who know me to push on it before it goes any further.

I’m also thinking about a fuller “I’m writing a novel” update for May or June, with photos from that event, as a way of bringing more of you along with the process rather than waiting until there’s a finished thing to point to.

Wrapping Up

School is a place. Teaching and learning is something human, something a community does together across generations. The novel is my first attempt to put that idea inside a story instead of inside a framework or a curriculum.

If you think about teaching and learning this way too, I’d love to connect.