The year my kids started kindergarten was the same year our school added K – 3rd grades to its 4th – 8th, and so all the lower grades started together. For three years, my kids moved in a cohort with the grade above them. They were a tight-knit, unified learning community. We loved our parent group as well. This year, the fourth grade became its own class and the small remaining group of 3rd graders (seven altogether, of which our kids are two), joined the grade below them for a combined 2-3. There have been a number of challenges in this set up, and one is that academically, the tiny 3rd grade had been operating in harmony with the 4th grade and now they’re sort of waiting for the 2nd grade to land in school-proper after their time in a creative, play-based, open K-1 class. My kids’ teacher is lovely, and cool things are happening in the classroom. But we’re still sitting with a problem, and it’s deeper than we anticipated, though we were nervous about the change: they’ve lost their learning community. The one-room-schoolhouse environment suddenly shifted out from under them.

Well, we’re here grappling with all of this, but I bring it to you because as writers we very much depend on finding our learning community. And if you can be the equivalent of the precocious 2nd graders in a room full of mostly 3rds, count yourself lucky. There’s another way of saying this: Work with people who are better than you, smarter than you, more successful than you. Be grateful for the necessity and the opportunity to grow. The group, too, does much to create those idea conditions. Just as the collectivity of the movie audience has an intelligence and sense of humor that exceeds that of the lone or paired viewers, the group writing and reading and discussing together gains in reach and talent and insight. I know it. The intimate groups of BWW classes are so bright, produce incredible writing on the spot, build each other up not with false pride but with adoration and substance. We become better in each other’s company than we are alone.

Find your group, find your writing habit, and stick with them for the long haul. Together you’ll get places you’d never have discovered on your own.

Share your thoughts in the comments below!