teaching

Jane Austen’s 250th Birthday Year & What Teaching Her Taught Me About Life & Writing

/ Rebecca J. Whitman

December 16th, 2025 is Jane Austen’s 250th Birthday. This semiquincentennial celebration has been celebrated all over the world already with special festivals, readings, reenactments, and more. I am pleased to hear she is important enough to even be on a bank note in London now. In Bath, you can visit her museum and book tickets for festivals and experiences. In America, you can learn all about her in the Jane Austen Collaborative including Summer Programs for Teachers and a whole bunch of research and interactive materials. I can only imagine how big the celebration will actually be on December 16th.

Jane Austen is loved in many ways in America. For those of us Janeites who are English teachers, we teach her books in our classes. Pride and Prejudice has been my go to for years in my English 4 class because it my favorite of all of them, but this year I was challenged to find a new book to give some love. I read Emma, Persuasion, Northanger Abbey, and Sense and Sensibility all at roughly the same time. It was crazy to me how much Austen’s voice and purpose changed in each book. The cadence and flow, the storytelling mastery that I loved in P&P were washed out or gone completely in some of them. The memorable lines of P&P from that opening line to Darcy’s confession of love were just missing entirely in Sense & Sensibility. As a movie, it is close, but as a book, I found myself constantly stopping and restarting to figure out what was happening. Jane Austen shouldn’t be that hard to follow. She was well ahead of her time for engaging her readers.

Jane Austen as sketched by her sister, Cassandra, to whom she wrote many letters. 2025 © Copyright National Portrait Gallery

What surprised me as I read the other books was how much of an activist Jane Austen really was. In Emma, she was well into her career and chose to take on a character she knew she would love more than her readers. Emma is fiesty, independent, and does not need a man. If she falls in love and marries, it is by choice not society’s force. She goes against the customs of her day and embraces her own dreams for her life. From the first page, I found her character very intriguing and modern. It made me love Jane Austen as a writer more because she was taking risks and being a voice for change.

In Persuasion, there was a similar activist purpose. In this book, the main character is dealing with a lot of society pressure to do things and live to certain standards. It cost her a marriage to the man she really loved and overspending made her family have to downsize to become more fiscally responsible. These were big ideas to take on in an Austen novel. Usually social commentary is something you would expect more in Dickens or Bronte, but Austen was finding her way to do it too. It may have taken her getting into a groove and becoming popular enough to afford being able to take a risk, but she still did it.

Northanger Abbey was a surprise of a different kind. In this little book, Austen talks directly to the reader several times about writing! Not only does she reveal some historical shade on reading novels, but she gives her own opinion on the issue in general. She talks about writing and the importance of reading all while showing a character who took her love of reading too far. Northanger Abbey was a coming of age novel. It was a little slow to get into and very dated in the details, but the story did catch our attention. Anything this old that can capture a teenager’s attention deserves recognition.

What Austen Taught Me As a Woman

I have always admired Austen for being a woman who took care of herself and provided a living for herself while she was single and living with family. Austen never married, and that has always made me sad. How could someone write about love and relationships with so much clarity and focus, yet not be able to secure it for herself? Maybe someday I will do a deeper dive into her letters and personal correspondence to get to know Austen better, but for now it is just a dull question in the back of my mind…why?

If anything, I think the answer is in Persuasion. Supposedly Austen had a man pursue her and she wanted to say yes to him, but her family did not approve. Persuasion is a similar story, but with a much better ending. Sometimes I wonder if Austen’s writing wasn’t just trying to make her own happy endings and life choices over again. Why didn’t she show the activism on her pages within her own four walls? Maybe she did and we just don’t know it.

Still, regardless of her love life, Austen was a fierce woman for her time and someone to admire even today. She has left a mark and told us women that we are capable of so much more than our culture may dictate. If I could interview her today, I think Austen’s advice to young women would be “if you have a dream, pursue it; don’t let anything hold you down.”

What Austen Taught Me As a Writer

Reading so many Austen books at once gave me the chance to focus on the common threads between them. I would listen to how the character development progressed and later novels were stronger than early work (with the exception of P&P). I also listened for a familiar structure, cadence, or form. I realized that we writers do develop a style that is pretty hard to get away from no matter what the topic may be. Austen’s style is conversational, approachable prose with a lot of dialogue to show the story more than tell it. l found the books that were good were the ones that did this. The rest were just hard to get into.

I also came to the realization that the really great writers in the world are those that use their platform for good.

Dickens used his writing to encourage reform in society (for example child labor and poverty). Bronte also spoke about education reform and other society issues. Austen entertained us with romance but made us question our society norms at the same time. Women were held back in her time, and her honesty with this repression on the page changed things for women in the future. I believe the great writers like Dickens, Bronte, and Austen were great and unforgettable not just because they were good story-tellers but because they used their skills to make a difference in the world around them. After all, what other purpose can be there be for an artist than to hold a mirror to their world and ask them to make it better?

To All My Followers: A Message About All The Silence

/ Rebecca J. Whitman

With this post, I want to take a moment to thank the many subscribers I have that watch for regular announcements of my work. Your support has been amazing and helped me grow my writing business. I couldn’t do what I do without you, and I hope you will continue to follow this journey.

That said, I went quiet without explanation about August 2022. I want to apologize to all my fans for that abrupt pause, and I want to explain what happened here now.

What Happened

When I started blogging, it was a side thing to help my students. In 2021, however, I left teaching to pursue other opportunities including building a full time writing business. I loved being able to travel freely and write all over the place. It was liberating to finally have control of my own time. But to be successful, I had to cut expenses, think outside the box, market myself like crazy, take on jobs outside my passion, and hope it all worked out. I was scared a lot but also building faith in God to be my provider.

I struggled financially a couple of times and by July, I cried out to God to help me because I didn’t see a way forward anymore. I was stressed and tired of trying to talk people into the value of my work. I’ve never liked sales, so the marketing side of my work was sucking the fun out of my writing passion. I was also growing anxious and living in a lot of fear. It wasn’t healthy for me.

Family suggested that I get back into teaching. I did not want to teach at all, but I went looking to appease them. I found a couple open positions in a nearby school and started applying. I got halfway through the process and talked myself out of it.

Then one day one of my writing commissions asked me to take a bus ride with the district’s superintendent. Not only was he a nice guy, but everywhere we went seemed happy to see him. That impressed me. One of the schools we visited happened to also be the one where I left a partial application.

I went into that school and met the teachers and administrators as a reporter. The next day, they called me in for an interview and offered me the job. Thereafter, I found out that the job wasn’t supposed to be listed and my application wasn’t supposed to be in a pool to interview because it was incomplete. The job came to me when it wasn’t supposed to be mine at all. I took that as God moving and orchestrating things in my life.

My New Chapter

I accepted the teaching job with great joy. I had a lot of support from my colleagues and comfort in the subjects I had to teach because I was already familiar with the material.

What I was not prepared for was the students. Teaching teens really is a lot different than adults. For one, they are not there by choice, so you are fighting uphill against apathy for their attention. The other thing is they are driven by their emotions. Teenagers love, hate, and fight before they even think twice about consequences. In my first semester of teaching them, I had more lockdowns than in all eight years of teaching adults.

Where I am now has been scary, but it is rewarding when even one kid feels safe enough to come to me with his problems and talk them out. Making a difference in their life will be a legacy of change I can be proud of. Teaching teens has started a new chapter in my life.

What Now

I’ve decided to stay the course with teaching, and that means I also have to become a student again to get my teaching license. Every age group has qualifications required to teach it, and I never pursued qualifications to teach kids before. Now I will have to in order to keep my job.

I haven’t stopped the writing business, but it has slowed down to give me room to focus on this new chapter.

The Good News

Expect to see new content on here starting on Mondays at noon this month!

As much as possible, I am building new content for you now. I didn’t have time amidst my other writing jobs and teaching, but I am working on all that now.

I hope you enjoy the new stories. Thank you again for reading.

Rico Dawson: Local Artist Brings Music Industry Knowledge and Talent To The Classroom

/ Rebecca J. Whitman

Making a Difference

If you hear him in church, you may know him for the sharp tenor registers of his voice. Most people know him from the work he has done with at-risk youth, coaching football, or teaching music. Teaching now for over 20 years, Rico Dawson leverages his connection with kids to make a difference in teaching them both music and life.

Kids today are different. They feel entitled to success but don’t want to work for it. They don’t have the work ethic that they should. I tell my students there is a beginning and there is a manifestation at the end, but there is also an in-between wilderness and you have to go through that to get to the end. A lot of kids want to be great, but they don’t want to invest time in themselves to be great. A lot of kids don’t reach their full potential if they don’t have anybody pushing them.

I tell students the things they need to hear as it relates to what is ahead of them. I am intentional about spending time tying in life skills, teamwork, and emotions in what I talk about. In music, their emotions bleed into the music. They don’t know how to seperate that. Professionals learn how to seperate it out, but children can’t do that. When they sing or play, their heart bleeds onto their sleeve.

I tell my students this is business not personal because I am always thinking ahead to how they will be able to perform in the future. I push them hard because they won’t be able to “get in their feelings” in what’s to come as they work a job and perform at a level to meet that industry’s demand.

There is a human element to teaching. If you don’t have a relationship of trust with them and show that you care about their lives, they are going to turn you out.

Rico Dawson
Rico teaching a music class

An Artist In His Own Right

Very few people know Rico Dawson is actually a recording artist in his own right. He was recently ranked #1 Inspirational Gospel music artist in Goldsboro, NC on Reverb Nation and #45 in the region of Fayetteville, Raleigh, and Durham, NC. Mr. Dawson’s music has a global audience with a lot of interest in Europe and France. His music has an R&B feel with God-inspired lyrics.

Mr. Dawson completed a Bachelor’s degree from Elizabeth City State University in Music Industry Studies with a concentration in Business Administration. From there, he interned with a small independent record company in Virginia Beach, VA. As an intern, Mr. Dawson had the opportunity to see how musical talent is acquired and participate in talent scouting, acquisitions, and talent retainment.

Because of my background and training (in music studies), you can know in the first 15 seconds if a song is worth listening to. I would listen to the demos sent to us, write down the songwriter and song, listen to them, pass them on to the president, and contact the artists that he decided to hire for either contract work or negotiations for exclusive agreements.

Rico Dawson

#1 Advice to Young Artists Aspiring To Get A Recording Deal: Work On Your Craft

Many reality shows have chronicled what the gauntlet looks like. Though it is glamorized for entertainment value and details are added for us to have the buy-in in the audience, the real music circuit runs in very similar ways. In music, artists submit their work to a showcase of some sort with significant competition. 500 acts may be present in the beginning for what will widdle down to 3 actual recording deals. It starts with presenting your work to a panel of judges who look for what makes you stand out as new, interesting, and different from everything else they are hearing on the market. If you pass the first panel, you go on to the second with more scrutinizing tastes. It continues in this fashion till the end of the so-dubbed “gauntlet”.

The struggle for young artists is to work on their craft and get in front of the label heads at the time when they are looking for new talent.

Rico Dawson

Advantages of Modern Technology for Musicians Today

Artists today have more direct control over their material and what happens to it than they ever had in the past. With the help of social media and YouTube, individuals are able to connect directly with their audience long before a recording company gets involved in promoting them.

During Covid, a lot of artists were doing performances virtually and were able to monetize those performances through Eventbrite tickets. That helped a lot of artists stay afloat. Virtual is another space to reach the audience now.

Rico Dawson

A service that provides great industry reach and business management now is called Reverb Nation. Reverb Nation provides artists with the ability to distribute and track their music, collaborate with other artists, and submit press kits to active venue listings. It allows fans to contact the artist, and it gives real-time feedback demographics on who is listening to the music. Music is distributed easily through Spotify and other streaming music platforms. Reverb Nation has been a great tool for Mr. Dawson. Interested fans and venue opportunities have been able to reach out to him through the site from as far as England.

Reverb Nation lets the people decide what is important. I let the people decide.

Rico Dawson

#2 Advice to Young Artists Aspiring To Get A Recording Deal: Think About The Bigger Picture, Know Your Rights, and Protect Yourself From Bad Deals

When you are controlling your own content, you have to have a vision for where you want to end up. Do you want to play venues live? You probably need a set list of songs ready to perform and full albums and merch you can sell at the event.

Knowing what you want in the big picture is going to help you know how to navigate the smaller decisions. Don’t be misled by what you see. Some of the artists that look so successful are actually living on credit trying to work hard and pay back the studio for all they paid on them. Contracts with record companies can often keep artists in bondage paying back their debts for studio time, production, video, etc.

It’s industry standard to split 50/50, but some contract opportunities ask for more than that. When you sign with somebody, they control the narrative and sometimes your masters. You don’t want to lose your masters because that is where your big money comes from (in licensure).

Rico Dawson

At the time of this interview, Rico Dawson was working on his second album that will feature a fresh inspiration and word from the Lord. For more information including links to Rico’s music and videos, check out his site on Reverb Nation.

Christmas Time Blues, Doubts, And A Hard Lesson In Valuing Your Health

/ Rebecca J. Whitman / 4 Comments

This Christmas is not setting itself up to be one of my best ones, and it’s not because of what I’m about to tell you. It’s because so far this Christmas season, I have bought all my presents but not wrapped a one. I never found an ugly Christmas sweater to wear to the party, so I was completely left out of the photos. I’ve missed almost every Christmas song on the radio, been too busy-or sick-to decorate, and lost out on all my Christmas parties (even the ones I planned myself). It’s warmer than Autumn, most days this December, it’s not feeling like Christmas at all.

Christmas starts to feel like Christmas to me when the first cup of cider is poured in November, and the craft bazaars start popping up everywhere for early shoppers. This is my favorite time of year, and it excites me almost as much as Christmas morning, because this is the time I get to support local artists and buy gifts for the ones that I love. When we gather and give thanks at Thanksgiving, it just preps my heart more for the appreciation and love to come. The bright lights, the displays, and the holiday specials all feel magical to me. Christmas music and movies on constant play while I’m swimming in hot chocolate and gift wrap is…well…divine. Without all this cheer, all I hear is, “I’ll have a blue…Christmas.”

A Serious Wake Up Call

In the middle of my bustling, busy life, I got a serious wake-up call. I walked out the door, ten days before Christmas, excited to finally be going to a Christmas party, and my leg gave way beneath me. I fall on the steps and cried out for help. Help comes running, and I got back up only to feel my legs crumble again inside the house. I rested a moment, and looked at the clock; I was missing the party.

The shades of blue deepened in my heart. Again I tried to get up and leave. This time I made it to my car and fell completely on the cold, hard ground. I could feel the cold but nothing more, and I got scared. This falling business could be serious. I pulled myself up with a cane and my car wheel, but couldn’t hold it. My right leg was complete jello. All the strength of my left side was not enough to pick up Humpty Dumpty again. This time my cry for help would require a team of EMS workers to lift me.

With the arms of EMS gripped around me, I thought of my students. So many of them have expressed a desire to be EMS someday. I held on to the man closest to me–a volunteer first responder, a neighbor whose name I still don’t know. I let him be my legs that would get me to the stretcher and the ambulance and the hospital while I text work and my students what to do while their teacher missed class.

All Too Familiar

Six months before this moment, I was doing the same thing only much more damaged and covered in blood. I was hit by a van and spun down the highway three times. My brand new car was totalled. My face was cut and permanently scarred. My back was severely shaken out of alignment. Yet, I survived.

I remember thinking, in those few seconds of white as I spun down the road, “God, is this going to be it? This can’t be it. I’ve got so much left to do in the world.”

Then I thought about the tractor-trailer. Where was it? It had been right behind me before I was hit. I closed my eyes and braced for a second impact. “Oh God, Oh Jesus, please help me!”

I knew I would most likely not survive that blow. As my car spun out, I thought about my loved ones and how it would hurt them. I thought of all the things I left unsaid. I thought about my job, my goals, and my dreams. I wasn’t ready for the end.

Then suddenly, the car stopped. I opened my car door and tried to get out as quickly as possible. If I was still in the road, I didn’t want to be hit again. But I was not in the road. Somehow, I had been spun around enough to put me facing oncoming traffic but resting safely on the side grass a few feet beside the road sign.

This was God’s answer: Not yet.

Temptation To Doubt God

Landing back in the hospital, my thoughts spiraled.

“Are you sure, God? If I have a purpose not yet done in this world, why bring me more pain and suffering? How can that further your cause?”

I questioned God, but I didn’t get angry. I didn’t understand the purpose in the pain, but I remembered that we were never promised a struggle-free life.

In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart, I have overcome the world. –John 16:33 NIV

Four hours later lying immobile in the hospital bed, a CT scan revealed that I had a herniated disc in my lumbar spine. I left with heavy drugs, possible surgery, and weeks of required time off work. When it was all said and done, my body reset itself, and I learned a hard lesson in paying attention to my health.

But in the moment…all I had was the hope that God really was in control.

I wrote this poem:

Now my Christmas may be less active and bright.

I may be seeing your lights from a distance tonight.

I will be sending you gifts of hope and cheer,

while you celebrate with all who are near.

As you open your gifts, there’s one gift I hope we can share:

It’s the gift of the Christ child on Calvary’s snare.

What meant to kill and steal him from the Earth,

Gave to us our second birth.

Merry Christmas!