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By Elizabeth Farrington
Newspaper_Profile (2).mp4An interview with one of Albuquerque High School's most popular and influential teachers. Forrest Agee, also known as Mr. Agee, teaches AP Language and Composition, English 11, and Creative Writing 1.
Forrest Agee, also known as Mr. Agee, teaches AP Language and Composition, English 11, and Creative Writing 1. His life revolves around writing, as he also runs a poetry club and writes it in his free time. Mr. Agee is devoted to sharing the art of writing and motivating youth to express themselves through writing, as well as teaching them to appreciate works of literature.
To him, writing is “the act of Creation. It is the Big Bang. It is God speaking and then there is light. It is art, purpose, and passion.” He sees youth creative expression as incredibly important. He believes that identity is tied to language and that youth expression is especially vital in a world where they are constantly labeled by stereotypes, racial profiling, gender, and test scores. “It is important that students realize they...have a voice in the common narrative. The youth must speak for themselves so they aren’t misrepresented.”
In regards to teaching, Mr. Agee is most motivated by a need to do right by his students and his fellow teachers. Their improvement is important to him; “if someone has improved because I nudged them in the right direction...and feels more confident, more democratically empowered, that motivates me.” He was motivated to teach from his 11th grade English teacher who “was so in love with literature that she was drunk on it.” He says she “would melt our minds with literature” that he originally had no intention of taking seriously but has now become a driving force in his life.
Mr. Agee describes the pandemic as being one of his most difficult challenges. “There are no good answers, and no real solutions to helping everyone.”. He believes that the pandemic is a real challenge for teachers and “has exposed the inefficiencies of the education system, the inequality that results from habitually underfunding schools, and the generation failure to create support for those who need them most.” His biggest challenge in the pandemic is “limited power [he has] to change things due to the reality we find ourselves in.”
When asked who is one person, dead or alive, he would have a meal with, he takes the creative route with his answer. “I think it would be kind of nice to be at a backyard afterlife barbeque with a bunch of people, just to rub shoulders with, exchange a line or two maybe.” He goes on to describe an imaginary gathering with Jimi Hendrix, Charles Bukowski, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Malcolm X, John Lennon, Martin Luther King, and Vladimir Lenin. “I don’t know if I would like them personally..” he says, in a literary tone, “I think I would prefer to experience what they have left behind for us, to the intimacy of the human element.”
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