When James Daniels ‘21 got in trouble growing up, his grandmother would hand him a pencil and paper and tell him to write down his feelings. Then, she would grade it. It could not have been better training for the future poet and educator he would one day become.

Daniels, who earned his bachelor’s degree in middle grade English language arts and social studies education, is now an assistant professor and the director of creative writing at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, and in February, he was also appointed Poet Laureate of Greensboro.

In this role, Daniels works to bring together K-12 schools, local universities, and spaces such as the Demhaj Poetry Lounge, The Poetry Cafe, and the Greensboro Cultural Center in ways that serve the needs of the city and its arts community. 

“It’s all about building bridges,” Daniels said.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

On why he chose a career in education: The change that can happen in a mind depending on what you experience in a classroom — that’s a craft that feels so magical to me. People want to learn; people want to get better at things; people want to be in community, and all of that can happen in a classroom. 

On how education shaped him: What education has done for me is make me realize that everybody has beauty inside them that’s really necessary to be facilitated. You can do a lot of work to realize that yourself, but when it really becomes beautiful is when you have a community around you. The educators I’ve had in my life have been dedicated to being like, “let’s figure out how to help you develop what you’ve already got or what you want to get better at.” Now, of course, I want to give that gift to other people.

On what he enjoyed most about the NC State College of Education: The people are unmatched — the professors, obviously SAY Village — the caliber of educator NC State attracts is insane. Some of these folks I still call. I’m teaching college; you’re teaching five-year-olds, but what you’re doing is working, so how do we replicate that for 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds? The other thing was the [We Teach 4 NC Spring Break]. I’m from a rural county, so it was so cool to get a chance to experience something that was close to my heart, but also to learn something new about what people in those areas were doing with education.

On what others should know about the College of Education: Think and Do is not just the university’s motto. It really is Education 101. We do a lot of knowledge work and molding and forming, but the only way that stuff sticks is by applying it. The only way to teach is to do. In order to be a good writing teacher, you’ve got to write. If you’re asking your students to do it, you’ve got to do it. What I would tell people is: Be ready to do things. Come in as you are. But that’s not how you’re going to leave. You’re going to leave being ready to do a craft, which is teaching. 

On something that inspired him: We had an open mic in our spoken word class [at NC A&T], and then we had some guest speakers come in afterward. It was so inspiring seeing the students do the open mic and do well and grow from the beginning of the semester. That’s the Think and Do. We’ve been thinking about it, reading about it. Now, I’m having you come up here and do it.