While AP literature and creative writing teacher Katie Smith seems extremely passionate in teaching now, she hadn’t always wanted to teach.
“Until I took tenth grade AP biology, I thought I wanted to be a doctor, but then I realized how obnoxiously tedious biology was for me. And I wasn’t a fan of all the smells that went along with it. After that, it was all literature,” Smith said.
Smith can recall many inspiring teachers and previous professors of hers, whom she said made her feel that a classroom environment was where she belonged. She said it wasn’t until her first semester of graduate school that Smith realized she wanted to teach. She had planned on staying in higher education, getting a PhD and becoming a professor, but found that graduate school wasn’t nearly as personally meaningful as she had expected it to be. When in front of the classroom for the first time, Smith described it as “very challenging, but also the most energizing and fulfilling thing” she had ever done.
“I’ve always really enjoyed those teacher that you can tell truly enjoy their job,” Smith said. “I think it makes a huge difference. When they want to be there or if we want to be there, I think it’s easier for the students to want to be there as well.”
Smith teaches both AP literature and creative writing, but said that AP literature is more in her comfort zone. While she enjoys creative writing, she said she has never identified herself as a creative writer, and is much more analytical by default. Her best advice for AP literature students is to do the assigned reading. She has many goals for her students both this year and in years to come.
“My ‘Great Expectations’ for this year are to see my students get to where they want to be,” Smith said. “Not just with their writing and AP scores though. I would like my students to look back at the end of the year and be able to tell the specific ways in which they have grown over the course of the past nine months. I would like for a factor in that growth to be my class.”
Originally from Van Buren, Smith appreciates the beauty of Arkansas. In high school, her family moved to Virginia where Smith finished out her high school career and graduated from college. After those six years, she moved back to Arkansas, settling in Fayetteville to attend graduate school. Smith had a chance to move to Brooklyn, New York, but after she began shopping for apartments online and imagining herself there, she said it became more and more evident that it wasn’t a good fit.
“I wasn’t going to be able to achieve the kind of balance that I feel Arkansas offers,” Smith said. “This area in particular, with all the things to do in Little Rock, it seems there’s always some event or concert going on, but it still has that restfulness of all the outdoor places to get away to and just relax. That balance is really important to me.”
She said she has enjoyed it here so far. Smith said she believes she has the best students, but also recognizes her bias in the matter.
“I’m having a lot of fun so far and I hope that they are too,” Smith said. “I just feel incredibly grateful to be here and incredibly fortunate to be in the position that I’m in.”
Smith started her teaching career while attending University of Arkansas where she taught freshman composition classes in three different courses as a part of her assistantship as well as reading classes to kids of all ages. Smith eventually chose to teach high school students because she said she finds them genuinely interesting. Smith said she thinks senior year is an especially nerve-wracking and stressful time and that she hopes her class will provide students with moments to realize what is important and “rest a little bit amidst all the craziness” of senior year.
“You know, some people really like to hate on high school students, but I find them much less annoying than middle school kids and generally interesting people,” Smith said. “I feel like it’s easier for me to connect with them on more than just an academic level. I’m genuinely interested in my students. I find them to be genuinely fascinating people.”
Not only did Smith choose to teach high school, she made a specific decision to teach English. Smith said she thinks of English as the subject that affects all the other parts of our lives because our lives are made up of stories that are impacted by the ideas that we as people have and how we see the world. She said literature has so often changed the way that she sees the world and the way that she views people and herself.
“[Literature] is just everything,” Smith said. “It’s so incredibly meaningful to me that I would never dream of teaching anything else. I don’t think anything can compare to the kinds of really big deal shifts that can take place when you really have an encounter with the text that changes something on a really profound level.”
Smith said here were many texts that shaped her throughout her life, but one in particular is an early 19th century French realist novel titled “Madame Bovary”. In this novel, a character falls so in love with romance novels that she could no longer appreciate her real life. Smith said she believes there is a tendency, even now to have a romantic idea of what we want to do and what we want our lives to be like, especially in the age of Facebook and Instagram. She said that this is a dangerous idea and this book curbed her tendency to lose her appreciation of the real world.
“It’s kind of a tale of warning. It’s a real temptation, to stop appreciating the things that are actually right in front of us and the things that we actually have access to in favor of some romanticized, idealized version of what life could be if things were different,” Smith said. “I would love to cover that text in class.”
Smith expresses a great love for literature as well as teaching and speaks of these two going hand in hand during her career. She said the best part of teaching is the chance to share the literature that has proved to be an impact on her life and character.
“In what way could teaching ever not be important?” Smith said with a laugh. “For me personally, it’s getting to share my experiences with these great texts that have changed and directed my life in so many ways. Getting to replicate some of those experiences and revisit those with my students now is incredibly meaningful.”
