No, really! I am! I'm not feeling stressed, though I guess I am. See the post about down time. That was sort of a low point. I feel like my expectations are becoming a bit more realistic. I am striving to have the next week's unit done in time for it to be released to the students, rather than trying to build up a queue of 2 or three to give myself space. The grading, which I feared, is not bad. I simply work through several submitted assignments a day (more or less) and then work on prepping or researching the lesson that needs to go up. I'm a little behind. The Chaucer lesson is 2/3 of the way done. It was released on Monday with the Wife of Bath module listed as "Coming soon!" But since they haven't even finished the Old English poetry unit (the first one) and they have a short module on Arthurian history/romance, I can't say I'm worried that they're going to be champing at the bit for the Wife of Bath. I wouldn't. Would you?
My problem is that I have some odd little pains in my chest throughout the day that worry me a bit. Over the summer, I had a couple of weeks when I was feeling like my heart was racing quite a lot, and similar little pains. Some shortness of breath. The pains felt like the horrible stabbing heartburn that I had when I was pregnant with daughter #1. The shortness of breath felt like anxiety. By thinking about it, I seemed to make it worse. There was a lot going on at the time. A trip to Ft. Worth with just the kids because my usual traveling companion was traveling for work. A proposed trip to visit a campus with my oldest (though we didn't make it). When my husband travels, I get anxious. When I travel, I get anxious.
I decided to go to a doctor and see whether this was a problem. I had spoken to my OBGYN months before about the palpitations (which had already stopped by the time I saw her), and she said if it returned, she could set me up with a monitor. That seemed extreme when they returned in August or so. So I went to a family practitioner. She was young--too young--and seemed more occupied with her shadowing med student than me. She did an EKG. Hello??? EKG??? (Which, I should say was perfectly fine. Beautiful. And all of my levels were normal to on the high side of normal.) And referred me to a cardiologist. Done. Well, that seemed extreme. I didn't go. I stopped taking my vitamins (which seemed to be contributing to the effect). We switched permanently from Starbucks ground coffee to Mystic Monk, which I prefer anyway. That, for some reason, made a HUGE difference. And life continued with no further thumpings or beatings or racings. Until now.
The doctor did ask if I had a stressful lifestyle. I said no. I pondered that after, trying to figure out what I really meant by "stressful." So this is a post about work-life balance.
I have not changed my coffee--well, okay. I was drinking an extra cup, bringing my daily total up to two--in addition to my Dr. Pepper, soft drink of choice, which is not daily, but close. But the small stabbing pains--anxiety? heartburn? something else?--have returned, and I get short of breath sometimes. The heart racing isn't as it was--so the Starbucks must have been a serious contributing factor (though I can still buy their drinks without a problem). But something feels different, not quite normal, and the same as before.
And all I can think of is that question about stress. What is stress? I answered "no" because I was generally happy (if not quite satisfied with my work situation), and didn't feel overwhelmed or unable to cope with what I had to do. I'm not sure if I believe that "busy" is the same as stressed. When I have felt most stressed recently (last fall), it has had to do with others' illnesses, teacher matters, and general family interactions. Not simply the daily living of my life--except insofar as those things influence the daily living of my life. So okay, I live a stressful lifestyle. Sometimes.
Right now, I have more on my plate than ever, but I'm coping surprisingly well. So what's with the pains and the heart and the lungs?? I am teaching religious ed. That is stressful. My older daugther is in 4-H archery. She had a competition over the weekend that she wasn't ready for, and my heart aches for that. Of course, everyone around me is dropping like flies to some plague or other, so that's stressful. My younger daughter's school situation has improved since last semester, as has my son's (12th grade), so that's good. Money isn't really a problem now as it has been. I work at work, of course, but that's rarely stressful. I have my class that I'm teaching online, which means that my evenings and weekends are occupied with work, which is often hard to come to terms with. I do other things, too, but it feels like I am constantly working. However, I am also engaged. My mind is active and I am happier and more satisfied with everything. I am writing more on the blog and in a notebook (creatively), which is good. But I am busy. Busy, busy, busy. I don't read on the sofa in the evenings--I work. I don't slump against my husband's shoulder on the sofa and doze a bit before bed--because I'm working. I don't sleep as well. I'm often dreaming about something work-related. Last night I dreamt that I had borrowed the velvet Victorianesque ensemble of an author I like without asking, and was modeling it and trying to get it back before she noticed. Huh. A good night is when I don't remember what I dream. I'm dreaming, dreaming, dreaming, all the time. Maybe it's the coffee (I've cut back down to one cup). Maybe it's late night engagement.
So is my lifestyle stressful? I'm inclined to say no at the moment. But it is sleep-deprived. And I'm on. All the time. I'm thinking the sleep might be the problem. When my husband travels, I don't sleep. I often stay awake until 3 A.M.--listening. Because I'm the only one around to protect everyone. I will also fall asleep with or in a book. This accounts, perhaps, for the symptoms over the summer and connects them to what I'm feeling now.
I'm most peaceful these days when writing--reflective, contemplative activity. A substitute for sleep, perhaps?
Tuesday, February 3, 2015
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Because I can't not be...
Lately, the conversation going on around me (online) has centered, to a large degree, on an article about the writer's life, and particularly, how writers treat, or lie about, the sources of income that allow them to write. While this doesn't directly apply to me, it has spawned some conversation that does apply to me, and also some thought.
I am not a writer. I mean, I am a writer. I call myself "a compulsive writer in search of a subject," and that works for me rather nicely. Sometimes, I have to write. I am also a compulsive blog-creator, though I have two right now that are actually active. I am also trying to put together a story (I guess you would call it a novel, but for now it's just a story), which means that I do sneak 10-minute intervals at lunch and sometimes at work. But I have never deluded myself that I could make money by writing, even though I was an English major and seriously considered the creative writing "track" (which would have required a class on the history of the English language, and I wasn't up for that at the time). Even now, the idea of writing fiction for profit seems laughable to me, although I know people who are doing it, trying to do it, or claiming to do it, as the case may be. Each and every one of them does, in fact, have another source of income though, so the claims are dubious.
It might be because I grew up in New Orleans that I was never deluded about "making a living" as a writer. I'm not sure that my crowd ever aspired to the kind of lifestyle that everyone seems to want these days--at least in Texas. A modest house and the ability to eat and pay the bills while not working so hard you were miserable seemed to be what most of us wanted--except, of course, that we were also creative types who could not imagine living without writing or acting. My English teachers never made it sound like writing for a living was a thing--creative writing or otherwise. All of the writers I knew were teachers. I never felt deluded for a moment, even when our junior English class attended the gala for the Pirate's Alley Faulkner Society as a reward for stuffing envelopes. The writer's lifestyle was normal living and this, too. But we were certainly encouraged to try. And I have, though not with as much dedication as when I was an undergrad getting rejection slips from The Southern Review.
So in New Orleans, which has a literary culture, I was never told that writing would or could or should be my life. Frankly, I thought getting advanced degrees and teaching college was a much more practical plan that would stillmake time for include necessitate writing. It might be that I was a poet--no one makes money from poetry. Poets write poetry because poets have to write poetry. I thought that was simply how it worked. I am a writer because writers have to write and I have to write. (No, that's not exactly a run-on.) And, in a similar vein, I got a Ph.D. becuase I had to get a Ph.D. Not because I was particularly... whatever people think. It was simply something I had to do because I couldn't not do it. (Not doing it would mean getting a real job, and I'm still not ready for that!) I guess I feel sorry for starry-eyed people who think they can make a living writing novels (some do, but I would bet even fewer than those who land tenure track positions). Except I don't really feel sorry for them because hello? Reality. It's all around us. People. Working. Again, I call myself a "cynical idealist." This might be why.
So working to write. I get that. Having someone else working so that you can write. I guess I get that, but to a lesser degree. That kind of lifestyle requires more privilege than I have ever had, if only so that the bills that you have in order to have home and food and transportation are not greater than the one income, or to avoid massive student loan debt because there was help from other places. It's not something I envy, it's simply something I didn't have. And yes, I made the choice to have more student debt. I don't really regret that either.
What I find strange and unsettling is that having a Ph.D., aspiring to make a living as an academic, whether or not one lands a tenure track job, is regarded as just as ridiculous as aspiring to make a living as a writer, if not more so since there's a glamour about writing, and academics are subject to more negative stereotypes in many corners.
What I also find strange and unsettling is that I'm a teacher--and I'm a teacher because I can't not teach. Like being a writer. Like when I thought I would be a poet. And so I adjunct. Which means that I have to have a day job. Some adjuncts teach many classes at ALL of the colleges so that they can scrape together a living while retaining the purity of their pursuit. These are the ones starving in the hedgerows and complaining about it. I'm a scab. A strikebreaker. The one who goes to work while others are picketing outside. Because I don't really need the pay, I rather feel as though I'm supporting a corrupt system that exploits the abundant overeducated labor force. Writers don't really have to face that. Writing is a glamorous, solitary occupation with a "high and lonely destiny." Teaching requires an infrastructure. And I'm also an online teacher. For an online only branch campus that wants its online academic instructors to be adjunct only. That's a whole different level of scabbiness. But heck. The adjunct-only adjuncts probably do more to support a system that keeps me (and themselves) out of teaching full time, simply because they're there to exploit, whereas I said no. I would not be exploited.
So what I keep coming back to is this: I am working full-time, not to support my writing habit, but to support my teaching habit. My unglamorous, slightly suspect, scabby little teaching habit. Because I'm a teacher, and teachers are compelled to teach.
Food for thought.
I am not a writer. I mean, I am a writer. I call myself "a compulsive writer in search of a subject," and that works for me rather nicely. Sometimes, I have to write. I am also a compulsive blog-creator, though I have two right now that are actually active. I am also trying to put together a story (I guess you would call it a novel, but for now it's just a story), which means that I do sneak 10-minute intervals at lunch and sometimes at work. But I have never deluded myself that I could make money by writing, even though I was an English major and seriously considered the creative writing "track" (which would have required a class on the history of the English language, and I wasn't up for that at the time). Even now, the idea of writing fiction for profit seems laughable to me, although I know people who are doing it, trying to do it, or claiming to do it, as the case may be. Each and every one of them does, in fact, have another source of income though, so the claims are dubious.
It might be because I grew up in New Orleans that I was never deluded about "making a living" as a writer. I'm not sure that my crowd ever aspired to the kind of lifestyle that everyone seems to want these days--at least in Texas. A modest house and the ability to eat and pay the bills while not working so hard you were miserable seemed to be what most of us wanted--except, of course, that we were also creative types who could not imagine living without writing or acting. My English teachers never made it sound like writing for a living was a thing--creative writing or otherwise. All of the writers I knew were teachers. I never felt deluded for a moment, even when our junior English class attended the gala for the Pirate's Alley Faulkner Society as a reward for stuffing envelopes. The writer's lifestyle was normal living and this, too. But we were certainly encouraged to try. And I have, though not with as much dedication as when I was an undergrad getting rejection slips from The Southern Review.
So in New Orleans, which has a literary culture, I was never told that writing would or could or should be my life. Frankly, I thought getting advanced degrees and teaching college was a much more practical plan that would still
So working to write. I get that. Having someone else working so that you can write. I guess I get that, but to a lesser degree. That kind of lifestyle requires more privilege than I have ever had, if only so that the bills that you have in order to have home and food and transportation are not greater than the one income, or to avoid massive student loan debt because there was help from other places. It's not something I envy, it's simply something I didn't have. And yes, I made the choice to have more student debt. I don't really regret that either.
What I find strange and unsettling is that having a Ph.D., aspiring to make a living as an academic, whether or not one lands a tenure track job, is regarded as just as ridiculous as aspiring to make a living as a writer, if not more so since there's a glamour about writing, and academics are subject to more negative stereotypes in many corners.
What I also find strange and unsettling is that I'm a teacher--and I'm a teacher because I can't not teach. Like being a writer. Like when I thought I would be a poet. And so I adjunct. Which means that I have to have a day job. Some adjuncts teach many classes at ALL of the colleges so that they can scrape together a living while retaining the purity of their pursuit. These are the ones starving in the hedgerows and complaining about it. I'm a scab. A strikebreaker. The one who goes to work while others are picketing outside. Because I don't really need the pay, I rather feel as though I'm supporting a corrupt system that exploits the abundant overeducated labor force. Writers don't really have to face that. Writing is a glamorous, solitary occupation with a "high and lonely destiny." Teaching requires an infrastructure. And I'm also an online teacher. For an online only branch campus that wants its online academic instructors to be adjunct only. That's a whole different level of scabbiness. But heck. The adjunct-only adjuncts probably do more to support a system that keeps me (and themselves) out of teaching full time, simply because they're there to exploit, whereas I said no. I would not be exploited.
So what I keep coming back to is this: I am working full-time, not to support my writing habit, but to support my teaching habit. My unglamorous, slightly suspect, scabby little teaching habit. Because I'm a teacher, and teachers are compelled to teach.
Food for thought.
Monday, January 26, 2015
Adjuncting Week 2: Wearing down already?
My online British Literature class started last Tuesday. This is week 2, but that's a little deceptive. I have been working on this class all month, but now there are students and things to grade. I look at myself, and I know that in spite of the excitement, I'm wearing down.
The ideal would be to have the new lessons/new material set up several weeks in advance--or since I am workign by "Topics" rather than "Weeks," a few Topics in advance. But I didn't manage to get a head start because I was setting up the orientation and framework in an unfamiliar interface. Still--I am on time, and since they're working at their own pace, and since Topic 1's deadlines aren't until next Monday, it's good that I have Topic 2 up and running. If anyone legitimately wants to work ahead (and I have one who is trying to game the system by not reading and turning in b/s), they can do so.
My nerves are a little thin. I turned to the blog after snapping at a friend on Facebook--and someone who tends to give me the benefit of the doubt--because I felt like I was being called out for being an obnoxious pain. This followed a casual chat (ha) with a co-worker about a conference abstract we submitted that was heavily edited by our boss before submission and without my permission, that I now have to live with. So that was definitely a contributing factor.
Here I am on a Monday, returning to work. I have a project to work on, and a 6-hour Business Writing class (training session) that I do not want to teach tomorrow. My weekend felt a little frenetic. Heck, so did my week. I get through my workdays now by looking forward to getting off of work--so that I can go home and work. It's not ideal, even if it is a generally positive thing.
What's going on with the class is this:
The ideal would be to have the new lessons/new material set up several weeks in advance--or since I am workign by "Topics" rather than "Weeks," a few Topics in advance. But I didn't manage to get a head start because I was setting up the orientation and framework in an unfamiliar interface. Still--I am on time, and since they're working at their own pace, and since Topic 1's deadlines aren't until next Monday, it's good that I have Topic 2 up and running. If anyone legitimately wants to work ahead (and I have one who is trying to game the system by not reading and turning in b/s), they can do so.
My nerves are a little thin. I turned to the blog after snapping at a friend on Facebook--and someone who tends to give me the benefit of the doubt--because I felt like I was being called out for being an obnoxious pain. This followed a casual chat (ha) with a co-worker about a conference abstract we submitted that was heavily edited by our boss before submission and without my permission, that I now have to live with. So that was definitely a contributing factor.
Here I am on a Monday, returning to work. I have a project to work on, and a 6-hour Business Writing class (training session) that I do not want to teach tomorrow. My weekend felt a little frenetic. Heck, so did my week. I get through my workdays now by looking forward to getting off of work--so that I can go home and work. It's not ideal, even if it is a generally positive thing.
What's going on with the class is this:
- Students needed to complete orientation lessons, take a quiz, and post instructor and peer introductions by last Friday.
- I have followed up (or tried to follow up) with those who did not complete that lesson, or who completed the quiz with less than 90% correct.
- I have graded most of the introductions that have been submitted, and all of the quizzes.
- Students are working on the Old English Poetry topic (or unit). They have another week to complete it.
- The Matter of Britain/Arthurian topic is up for those who are working ahead.
- I need to get the Chaucer unit ready to go (and I don't particularly like Chaucer).
- I want to compose a Week 2 Announcement that reviews what students should have accomplished/learned by now.
I am taking my time grading the Introductions because I feel like the introduction is an important place to establish a relationship with students by responding to their concerns and commenting on their goals. It's time-consuming, but also rewarding.
My weekend felt like a lot of grading, which I did in many blocks. It also involved a lot of emailing and entering zeroes. I checked in with my good friend who is coaching me through this (even though it is not her job to do so) frequently. When I wasn't doing basic bookkeeping, I was reading and finding and typing quotations for a quote analysis exercise, formatting that worksheet, and posting it to the online course. Although I thought that the topic was ready to go live early Sunday (It went live 12 A.M. on Monday), I realized after my girls were asleep (probably about 10:30 P.M.) that I had completely forgotten one of the key pieces I wanted to add--clips from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I had to find the clips, make sure they weren't internet fakes, and post them, then create the accompanying discussion board--all before cutting my husband's hair (which I like to do so that I have control over how short it is), bathing (to get off the cut hair), and going to bed.
The weekend felt a bit out of control. In reality, I did things other than work on the class. We got tires for our Highlander at SAM's and did some shopping. I made some returns--two pairs of boots that I ordered online that did not fit and a pair of jeans that I ordered that were not supposed to be black--and bought some Origins for my son, who is trying to fight acne with minimal medical intervention. We went to the vigil mass (so that we did not have to attend the parish at which I am co-teaching religious ed). I drank two nice, dark beers--that's excessive for me. I taught religious ed on Sunday morning--completely without prior preparation, as it turns out, because my co-teacher can't decide what our respective roles are or whether she is able to be responsible for the lesson consistently. We went to Target (as a family--which is how we do most things) and ate at McAlister's. I folded many baskets of clothes because I knew that if I approached the computer, I would grade introductions, and the work I had already done had left me achy and bleary and fuzzy-headed. But there seemed to be very little down time. I didn't read anything recreational.
I mention the achiness. I was dreadfully afraid that I was getting the flu, but I wasn't. The constant working does seem to be taking its toll in a couple of ways, though, and I felt achy from Friday to Sunday. I have also felt a teeny bit queasy every evening from Wednesday, when I had to get off the phone with my mom because I was not feeling well, to Sunday. I do tend to get this way from being over-tired, and I have been forcing myself to keep going by means of caffeine. Otherwise, my evenings had/would have been spent on the sofa with a book, curling up in my husband's shoulder and (often) falling asleep. An extra cup of coffee is taking care of that. And my stomach wants to protest a bit. I might be getting some extra heart-palpitations--which had mainly gone away when I switched from brewing Starbucks coffee at home to Mystic Monk.
Yet--I can't deny that in a lot of ways, I'm happier. I'm more creative. I'm engaged. I bought some notebooks to try to write a little of the story I started three years or so ago--at least during weekdays. My vocabulary is even a bit different. But I miss my down-time. And I feel behind with the class. Stretched--too thin--like butter over too much bread. But there are only so many hours in the day, and between 8 and 5, I'm forbidden to work on the class.
And that's how it stands at the beginning of Week 2.
Thursday, January 15, 2015
A New Chapter: Adjuncting
After a recent academic job search disappointment, I wrote my last post--a letter to potential committees--and removed my half-baked attempt to synthesize my past life as an academic and my present life as an 8-to-5-er from the blog. I don't know if I envisioned a fresh start or not, but here I am....
And it really is a fresh start. It is a new year, and I have taken a brave and ambitious move into adjuncting--online adjuncting. It suits me. I like technology when it is working for me--not simply to play with it. I like the idea of teaching a class that is self-paced. I like being able to develop a class at leisure, if you will--without the "what will I do NOW, TODAY" pressure. Not that I don't work well with that pressure, but I do find that if my emphasis is on the next class meeting, I am less likely to really develop the larger picture. It's all about "do I lecture, or do I make them do stuff on their own?" Well, it's all on their own, and while there's the question of how I will convey the information that I feel is essential, there's not the pressure for me to perform it in front of a class--to know what to say and how to answer the question that someone will ask that I am unprepared to answer (though I still do that in my day job).
Don't Give Up Your Day Job
I know that I am in a pretty privileged position as an adjunct--and. . . that's okay with me. This is the way to do it, really. I guess I was never quite as idealistic as I assumed--or I like to eat. One of the two.
I read an article today about a so-called "college professor" who is "highly educated" and yet can't make ends meet. I read about these things all the time. I admit that I feel a little more smug than I should--for all of my angst, I stand behind my decision to get a job that would allow my family a reasonable amount of comfort rather than running around in pursuit of adjunct positions. Although I did have a couple of non-adjunct positions I could have taken,and would not technically have had to adjunct; I still would have been earning less than I do in my full-time job, whatever the other benefits might have been (and clearly I wasn't convinced that those benefits would have been worth it).
Full-time adjuncting? Yeah. Sounds like hell to me. I'm afraid that adjuncting "on the side," almost as a--I laugh a little as I say it--hobby is really the way to do it. And I was fortunate to find a school that needs its online adjuncts--more than I need them, as my friend who is a full-time faculty member of one of the college's branches tells me.
With the financial security of two good salaries--which, for the first time, bump us into a very interesting income-bracket--I almost forget that the school will be paying me. That sounds terrible, doesn't it? But the amount they're paying me would be highly insignificant if adjuncting was my only source of income. It's still fairly insignificant, but in a different way. And that's liberating. I can focus on the parts I enjoy rather than the injustice of it all.
Working ALL. THE. TIME.
One of my deep reservations, and the reason that I have never pursued adjuncting before, even with a community college in the neighborhood (which is overwhelmed with a glut of grad students), is that Ididn't necessarily absolutely didn't want to work all the time. But I'm afraid it's starting. The semester starts next Tuesday for the school that has hired me to teach (it's a strange and wonderful thing, after all of this time, to have a school hire me to teach). Students are able to access the online course starting this week--this past Tuesday, in fact. And while I am not obligated to have any content up for them this first non-week, a friend advised that the orientation lesson can (and probably should) go up so that they can start practicing navigating the online course. So all of last week, last weekend, and all of this week, I worked my job, came home, and assembled or created the pieces of my class to meet deadlines. It was.... a little exhilarating, actually. Particularly the parts when I realize that I do know this stuff after all, or when I use my knowledge of technology (gained from my day job) to create something that I think will engage the students. I have needed to up my coffee intake by adding a cup in the (early) evening. I only drink one usually, so that's not too bad. (Particularly when most adjuncts I know cope by drinking a different type of beverage...)
It will catch up with me. Last night it was catching up with me a bit. I didn't have the second cup of coffee. I was depressed because the new boots that Ican afford ordered online didn't fit. And I felt tired--so tired--and aware that I should be doing something for my class. When I was going to bed, I remembered--I had done something for my class!! I designed a "wrap-up" essay question for the Old English poetry section that synthesized the things I wanted them to watch/read. So the evening was not quite a waste.
I also talked on the phone to my mom, and (earlier) listened to my daughter read her school reader (in Spanish, though I don't speak it--much). The night before I felt bad because I didn't listen to her read. I rather vehemently suggested that Daddy could listen to her read. While I was just as likely to do so for any other reason--cooking, composing a blog post, or whatever--I didn't like doing it. It felt more selfish to be putting her off for a second job that I didn't need to take for any reason other than my perverse failure to feel fulfilled by the other things I have in my life. So that will take balance. And one day, if I do achieve gainful academic employment, maybe I will have a summer month to spend with her and her sister.
On the other hand, the work doesn't always feel like work. It feels like engagement--something that I miss completely in my day job. I show up; I do stuff; I go home. They pay me well and I work with some cool people. But I have nothing to challenge my mind. Even the things that should challenge me in that context are things that I find absolutely boring. But packaging early British Lit--not easy stuff in a traditional classroom setting--for the web, and trying to maximize student engagement so that they actually take something away from the class? That is a challenge worthy of me.
I have no illusions. I will get tired. I will get bogged down. And inevitably, I will get behind. The novelty will fade, and I will have two jobs. Maybe. On the other hand, I will be communicating online with people about literature. And that's sort of what I do. So maybe--just maybe--this will be a good thing.
And it really is a fresh start. It is a new year, and I have taken a brave and ambitious move into adjuncting--online adjuncting. It suits me. I like technology when it is working for me--not simply to play with it. I like the idea of teaching a class that is self-paced. I like being able to develop a class at leisure, if you will--without the "what will I do NOW, TODAY" pressure. Not that I don't work well with that pressure, but I do find that if my emphasis is on the next class meeting, I am less likely to really develop the larger picture. It's all about "do I lecture, or do I make them do stuff on their own?" Well, it's all on their own, and while there's the question of how I will convey the information that I feel is essential, there's not the pressure for me to perform it in front of a class--to know what to say and how to answer the question that someone will ask that I am unprepared to answer (though I still do that in my day job).
Don't Give Up Your Day Job
I know that I am in a pretty privileged position as an adjunct--and. . . that's okay with me. This is the way to do it, really. I guess I was never quite as idealistic as I assumed--or I like to eat. One of the two.
I read an article today about a so-called "college professor" who is "highly educated" and yet can't make ends meet. I read about these things all the time. I admit that I feel a little more smug than I should--for all of my angst, I stand behind my decision to get a job that would allow my family a reasonable amount of comfort rather than running around in pursuit of adjunct positions. Although I did have a couple of non-adjunct positions I could have taken,and would not technically have had to adjunct; I still would have been earning less than I do in my full-time job, whatever the other benefits might have been (and clearly I wasn't convinced that those benefits would have been worth it).
Full-time adjuncting? Yeah. Sounds like hell to me. I'm afraid that adjuncting "on the side," almost as a--I laugh a little as I say it--hobby is really the way to do it. And I was fortunate to find a school that needs its online adjuncts--more than I need them, as my friend who is a full-time faculty member of one of the college's branches tells me.
With the financial security of two good salaries--which, for the first time, bump us into a very interesting income-bracket--I almost forget that the school will be paying me. That sounds terrible, doesn't it? But the amount they're paying me would be highly insignificant if adjuncting was my only source of income. It's still fairly insignificant, but in a different way. And that's liberating. I can focus on the parts I enjoy rather than the injustice of it all.
Working ALL. THE. TIME.
One of my deep reservations, and the reason that I have never pursued adjuncting before, even with a community college in the neighborhood (which is overwhelmed with a glut of grad students), is that I
It will catch up with me. Last night it was catching up with me a bit. I didn't have the second cup of coffee. I was depressed because the new boots that I
I also talked on the phone to my mom, and (earlier) listened to my daughter read her school reader (in Spanish, though I don't speak it--much). The night before I felt bad because I didn't listen to her read. I rather vehemently suggested that Daddy could listen to her read. While I was just as likely to do so for any other reason--cooking, composing a blog post, or whatever--I didn't like doing it. It felt more selfish to be putting her off for a second job that I didn't need to take for any reason other than my perverse failure to feel fulfilled by the other things I have in my life. So that will take balance. And one day, if I do achieve gainful academic employment, maybe I will have a summer month to spend with her and her sister.
On the other hand, the work doesn't always feel like work. It feels like engagement--something that I miss completely in my day job. I show up; I do stuff; I go home. They pay me well and I work with some cool people. But I have nothing to challenge my mind. Even the things that should challenge me in that context are things that I find absolutely boring. But packaging early British Lit--not easy stuff in a traditional classroom setting--for the web, and trying to maximize student engagement so that they actually take something away from the class? That is a challenge worthy of me.
I have no illusions. I will get tired. I will get bogged down. And inevitably, I will get behind. The novelty will fade, and I will have two jobs. Maybe. On the other hand, I will be communicating online with people about literature. And that's sort of what I do. So maybe--just maybe--this will be a good thing.
Thursday, October 23, 2014
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
Back-to-school Reflections
Having rediscovered my old blog while trying to get out some unrelated frustration, I read a post or two about going back to school when back-to-school meant I was going to be teaching and the children were going to be in child care. And while I do miss the newness that is the beginning of the school year, and I hate that the job simply goes on and on and on now, with no beginning, no end, and very little change, I emphatically do not miss the uncertainty of who was to go where, trying to avoid putting the very young children in child care for longer than I thought was good, and the guilt of not doing the things that I thought I should be doing with them while they were young. So looking forward to the beginning of the school year, which starts on August 25th here, I will attempt some reflections.
Doodle and Chiclette, as they were named many years ago on the blog, are now going into 3rd and 1st grade, respectively. Looking at this blog, that's a bit surreal. They are attending a lovely school, where Doodle has been going for 4 years, Chiclette 2. But there are changes afoot! The school has a new principal and a new assistant principal, who will hopefully leave well enough alone. A beloved coach (I can't believe I used those words together) will be a classroom teacher this year. And who knows what else awaits us?
Doodle has many friends from previous years, but each year, several move away. Because it is a college town, and we are living in one of the areas with less stable population, many people graduate and move away. So we already know that at least two of her best friends will not be there in the fall, which is sad. Last year, none of her friends from her previous years were in class with her, which was also a disappointment. Luckily, she makes friends easily. She also has a high tolerance for torment as we learned from her teacher last year when we approached her about a boy who seemed to be tormenting Doodle consistently. She didn't tell the teacher because even if she is annoyed, she does not want to get others in trouble. *sigh*
I worry a bit about Doodle, because she is proficient enough to easily make good grades, but not needy enough to get extra attention. Meaning, she is not always noticed--whether she excels or not. And I worry that she will not be challenged. She did not make G/T last year, though she was placed in an enrichment class (G/T - lite). The gifted and talented program in our school district identifies only children who are academically gifted, and also has to represent all races equally, leaving some to be excluded because of overrepresentation. By 3rd grade, if we do not have her working a year ahead, she will not test into G/T. Last year, her art teacher, who noticed Doodle in particular in Kinder and 1st, did not seem to pay any attention at all to her, which was disappointing. She will do well, and she values that--which is good. She simply doesn't get the recognition she deserves for being smart.
I have enrolled her in 4-H, which is exciting! In June, she took a 1-hour class every weekday for a month in archery. It's a "summer enrichment" in the public school, and both girls were enrolled in 3-4 different classes. She enjoyed the archery, and would like to continue, so we're going to try that out!
Chiclette is involved in the Dual Language program, which is an immersion English/Spanish program for native speakers of both languages. It is inherently challenging, which is good. Again, though, Chiclette flies under the radar a bit. There are high-maintenance children, and she is not. She also seems to learn without much effort. She also did not test into the Gifted program, but by a much closer margin--3 percentage points or thereabouts. What I worry about with her is motivation. She only read 5 or 6 of the take-home readers all year--she simply wasn't interested. And I have a hard time enforcing reading. But she advanced several reading levels nonetheless.
I have some reservations about the Dual Language program. Chiclette is amazingly attuned to language, and needs a challenge, so it is very good for her. But it is literally its own little separate community within the school. The teachers cultivate that--trying to create a bond between the families, in part so that we will have a support network when homework gets difficult, and so that the kids (and parents) will form friendships and will not want to leave the program before the "mandatory" 5 or 6 year commitment. What this means is that there are events for Dual Language only. And what THAT means is that during these events, the children run wild in the school while the parents socialize. I disapprove of both forced socialization with other parents and parent neglect of their ill-behaved children. I also disapprove of the air of priviledge that this gives the teachers, children, and parents in Dual Language. I have a child who is not Dual Language, so I am attuned to the differences. Many of these families--or the non-native speakers of Spanish--are Dual Language "dynasties" with multiple siblings passing through the program. Those parents are very well known, and chat with the teachers at events to the exclusion of newer parents--particularly those who work and have less time to volunteer. These are also the parents who spend summer vacationing in Mexico. I have also been on a field trip with Doodle's grade, during which the Dual Language classes were grouped with Doodle's non-DL class for the field trip. I was unimpressed by the snobbery of the 2nd grade DL teachers, the parents, and the behavior of the children--who were rounded up by whistle at the end of the lunch period because they were "bonding" so vigorously with each other, running all over the lawn. Even more unfortunately, the male DL 2nd grade teacher was arrested later in the year for inappropriate conduct with past students at a different school--which is not the fault of the program, but contributes to the overall bad feeling. However, Chiclette is social, so she does "mingle" with other children at other times--particularly after school.
Perhaps because of Dual Language, Chiclette--unlike Doodle--seems to be completely overlooked by the nonacademic teachers--art and the like. (I get the impression that the DL group is high-maintenance.) Well, the coach I mentioned earlier, seems to like both girls--and seems to be one of the few who links the girls together. Doodle is sunny and friendly. Chiclette is very friendly as well, but she's a little bit wry in her sense of humor, and she will protest things that she doesn't like, and state her opinion (as will Doodle, but differently). You can imagine that I'm proud. But she is devoted to her friends (one in particular!), and adores cute things. Sometimes, it's easy to forget how young she really is when she states that she is "infuriated" by the video game, but then she coos and makes goo-goo eyes because she thinks a baby toy or a stuffed animal is cute. At those times, something inside me cries for her innocence in a fallen world.
In her manner, she resembles her brother, who I believe was unnamed on the blog previously! Hmmm... Big brother is cynical, but makes goo-goo eyes when we watch Too Cute on Animal Planet. He also has a rather encyclopedic knowledge of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, without being a "Brony" (a casualty of babysitting two small girls). He is 17, and entering--drum roll please--12th grade. And that is completely surreal. So we are readying ourselves for college applications--he is trudging a bit, not really comfortable with the unknown, and not really wanting to leave home. He is also staring down about 5 AP courses this year--not a "blow off" year, by any means. I don't expect him to take that many AP tests--those are simply the courses that are available to him. He is entering his eigth year playing the cello, and his third year in Varsity Orchestra. I believe that at this point, music is what interests him the most in school. There have been years when I have felt that orchestra was easily the most valuable thing that he has done during the year. He has also mentioned graphic design and (heaven help us) ENGLISH as possible areas of study, though what English departments have made of literary study is not something I think he would enjoy.
So that's what the year looks like. It is nice to know that they have a routine again, though I dread the routine. I will miss having them at home, because home feels like a territory that I can control, and I hate being out of control. I'm trying not to think of that. I will also miss having lunch at home with them--a little bit of "normal" in my workday. (No, work is not normal. It is completely artificial.) After school, they have an after-school program which is a good program, but it is still too much time away from home. They should ideally be off no later than 3. But in spite of my dissatisfaction and concerns, they long for the other children and for their teachers, so it is a time of excitement for them. And really, I don't want to end on a sad note. It should be exciting. But I'm never quite ready to send them back.
Doodle and Chiclette, as they were named many years ago on the blog, are now going into 3rd and 1st grade, respectively. Looking at this blog, that's a bit surreal. They are attending a lovely school, where Doodle has been going for 4 years, Chiclette 2. But there are changes afoot! The school has a new principal and a new assistant principal, who will hopefully leave well enough alone. A beloved coach (I can't believe I used those words together) will be a classroom teacher this year. And who knows what else awaits us?
Doodle has many friends from previous years, but each year, several move away. Because it is a college town, and we are living in one of the areas with less stable population, many people graduate and move away. So we already know that at least two of her best friends will not be there in the fall, which is sad. Last year, none of her friends from her previous years were in class with her, which was also a disappointment. Luckily, she makes friends easily. She also has a high tolerance for torment as we learned from her teacher last year when we approached her about a boy who seemed to be tormenting Doodle consistently. She didn't tell the teacher because even if she is annoyed, she does not want to get others in trouble. *sigh*
I worry a bit about Doodle, because she is proficient enough to easily make good grades, but not needy enough to get extra attention. Meaning, she is not always noticed--whether she excels or not. And I worry that she will not be challenged. She did not make G/T last year, though she was placed in an enrichment class (G/T - lite). The gifted and talented program in our school district identifies only children who are academically gifted, and also has to represent all races equally, leaving some to be excluded because of overrepresentation. By 3rd grade, if we do not have her working a year ahead, she will not test into G/T. Last year, her art teacher, who noticed Doodle in particular in Kinder and 1st, did not seem to pay any attention at all to her, which was disappointing. She will do well, and she values that--which is good. She simply doesn't get the recognition she deserves for being smart.
I have enrolled her in 4-H, which is exciting! In June, she took a 1-hour class every weekday for a month in archery. It's a "summer enrichment" in the public school, and both girls were enrolled in 3-4 different classes. She enjoyed the archery, and would like to continue, so we're going to try that out!
Chiclette is involved in the Dual Language program, which is an immersion English/Spanish program for native speakers of both languages. It is inherently challenging, which is good. Again, though, Chiclette flies under the radar a bit. There are high-maintenance children, and she is not. She also seems to learn without much effort. She also did not test into the Gifted program, but by a much closer margin--3 percentage points or thereabouts. What I worry about with her is motivation. She only read 5 or 6 of the take-home readers all year--she simply wasn't interested. And I have a hard time enforcing reading. But she advanced several reading levels nonetheless.
I have some reservations about the Dual Language program. Chiclette is amazingly attuned to language, and needs a challenge, so it is very good for her. But it is literally its own little separate community within the school. The teachers cultivate that--trying to create a bond between the families, in part so that we will have a support network when homework gets difficult, and so that the kids (and parents) will form friendships and will not want to leave the program before the "mandatory" 5 or 6 year commitment. What this means is that there are events for Dual Language only. And what THAT means is that during these events, the children run wild in the school while the parents socialize. I disapprove of both forced socialization with other parents and parent neglect of their ill-behaved children. I also disapprove of the air of priviledge that this gives the teachers, children, and parents in Dual Language. I have a child who is not Dual Language, so I am attuned to the differences. Many of these families--or the non-native speakers of Spanish--are Dual Language "dynasties" with multiple siblings passing through the program. Those parents are very well known, and chat with the teachers at events to the exclusion of newer parents--particularly those who work and have less time to volunteer. These are also the parents who spend summer vacationing in Mexico. I have also been on a field trip with Doodle's grade, during which the Dual Language classes were grouped with Doodle's non-DL class for the field trip. I was unimpressed by the snobbery of the 2nd grade DL teachers, the parents, and the behavior of the children--who were rounded up by whistle at the end of the lunch period because they were "bonding" so vigorously with each other, running all over the lawn. Even more unfortunately, the male DL 2nd grade teacher was arrested later in the year for inappropriate conduct with past students at a different school--which is not the fault of the program, but contributes to the overall bad feeling. However, Chiclette is social, so she does "mingle" with other children at other times--particularly after school.
Perhaps because of Dual Language, Chiclette--unlike Doodle--seems to be completely overlooked by the nonacademic teachers--art and the like. (I get the impression that the DL group is high-maintenance.) Well, the coach I mentioned earlier, seems to like both girls--and seems to be one of the few who links the girls together. Doodle is sunny and friendly. Chiclette is very friendly as well, but she's a little bit wry in her sense of humor, and she will protest things that she doesn't like, and state her opinion (as will Doodle, but differently). You can imagine that I'm proud. But she is devoted to her friends (one in particular!), and adores cute things. Sometimes, it's easy to forget how young she really is when she states that she is "infuriated" by the video game, but then she coos and makes goo-goo eyes because she thinks a baby toy or a stuffed animal is cute. At those times, something inside me cries for her innocence in a fallen world.
In her manner, she resembles her brother, who I believe was unnamed on the blog previously! Hmmm... Big brother is cynical, but makes goo-goo eyes when we watch Too Cute on Animal Planet. He also has a rather encyclopedic knowledge of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, without being a "Brony" (a casualty of babysitting two small girls). He is 17, and entering--drum roll please--12th grade. And that is completely surreal. So we are readying ourselves for college applications--he is trudging a bit, not really comfortable with the unknown, and not really wanting to leave home. He is also staring down about 5 AP courses this year--not a "blow off" year, by any means. I don't expect him to take that many AP tests--those are simply the courses that are available to him. He is entering his eigth year playing the cello, and his third year in Varsity Orchestra. I believe that at this point, music is what interests him the most in school. There have been years when I have felt that orchestra was easily the most valuable thing that he has done during the year. He has also mentioned graphic design and (heaven help us) ENGLISH as possible areas of study, though what English departments have made of literary study is not something I think he would enjoy.
So that's what the year looks like. It is nice to know that they have a routine again, though I dread the routine. I will miss having them at home, because home feels like a territory that I can control, and I hate being out of control. I'm trying not to think of that. I will also miss having lunch at home with them--a little bit of "normal" in my workday. (No, work is not normal. It is completely artificial.) After school, they have an after-school program which is a good program, but it is still too much time away from home. They should ideally be off no later than 3. But in spite of my dissatisfaction and concerns, they long for the other children and for their teachers, so it is a time of excitement for them. And really, I don't want to end on a sad note. It should be exciting. But I'm never quite ready to send them back.
Monday, May 12, 2014
Notes on Grading: Pacing Ourselves and Blind Submissions
In my current training position, I adminster two "certificate programs," which are a collection of classes that staff members take in order to develop a certain skill area. The ones I administer develop basic competency in Microsoft Office and more general entry-level competencies for administrative professionals (software and soft skills). The certificate program requires a final project which attempts to bring together and demonstrate the skills that were gained through the classes, while also providing an additional teaching opportunity, since unlike in the classroom, in the real world, a document is not finished until it is presentable. Recently, speaking with the person who previously administered one of my certificate programs, I confessed to her that I was rarely ever busy, and she expressed a great deal of surprise: she was always very busy with the certificate projects. This puzzled me at first. I don't get many projects at a time, and when I put my mind to it, I can get through the components and give feedback very quickly. After all--there's no grade to put on the paper. And then it occurred to me: I am used to this. Much more used to it than she was, since I taught writing, and had to give clear, focused feedback that stressed how to improve--even if the advice was never actually applied.
Thinking about grading, I remember it as the most odious task of teaching. And yet, here I am, skimming quickly through these documents created for the certificate program, giving feedback, receiving resubmissions. The one major difference is volume. There are times, like now, when I do get all three parts of the project at one time, or components from three or four different certificate program participants. But that's it. And really? It's not so bad. I look through them. I tell them what changes to make. I send them back. They get to them whenever they can. This would be the ideal model for online distance learning, though of course I would have to assign grades at some point. But then I wonder--if sitting back and giving feedback is relatively easy, what is it that made grading so odious?
The answer has to be the bulk of essays and the time pressure. I hate to feel pressured, and yet it is necessary for me to feel pressured or I will accomplish nothing but blog posts or Facebook status updates--sad though that is to write. So why not stagger deadlines or feedback sessions? (Feedback sessions were my way of justifying particularly long turnaround times for graded papers. Feedback on the previous paper and the grade would be given along with advice for the next paper during a session of office hours. There would be a sign-up sheet. Sometimes these would replace class for a couple of days.)
This stays with me. Why do we grade papers in bulk? It's the dominant method, but whom does it serve? Not the instructor, who has this mountain of intimidation to face. Even when I was interested in the topics, or looking forward to reading student responses to an assignment, anticipation of the grading marathon inevitably forced me to procrastination.
Does grading in bulk serve the students? This is a harder question, because the grading inevitably becomes sloppier, the comments less helpful, the grades more arbitrary the deeper I get into the stack. And yet, I think one reason that we would not give out papers until everyone's paper had been graded was to maintain the semblence (illusion?) of fairness. But their is always some bias. The more workshops I attend on "subtle bias," and the longer I work in an office around people who are supposed to be aware of their biases, the more I conclude what I already believed--that bias is inevitable. Most of it, however, is personal. There were students whose papers I graded harder, though I didn't mean to, because they were pushing my buttons in class, or because they thought they were smart, or because I knew (and I hated it when teachers did this to me) that they could do better. Maybe I wasn't guilty of each one of these. I certainly did what I could to avoid it, but sometimes perhaps only blind submissions would have prevented it.
Where I failed in grading was usually through the carelessness of exhanustion. The last papers came after the previous papers, and looked either a lot better... or else a lot worse by comparison. I was tired and weary of errors and repetition. My handwriting got sloppy. Inevitably, I had promised these grades by the next day and would catch hell or reproving glances if I did not deliver. My feedback got thin or harsh. And I probably didn't think as much about the grade, perhaps relying solely on my rubric to avoid the unclouded judgment that 2 A.M. (or 30 minutes before class) would not grant.
So given my insight, what would I do differently? Well, for starters, I would like to see papers come in at a trickle rather than in bulk. With a clear head and a clear idea of the objectives of the assignment and how to determine whether those objectives were met, I think the inconsistency of grading would take care of itself without having to "rank" papers and compare A to A and B to B and so on (which I never had time to do anyway, though that was the ideal).
But what about fairness and due dates? In the real world, different people have different deadlines. That's just the way of things. You can't complain of fairness forever, because at some point it breaks down. It could break down here, but there would be a lot of whining. So let's randomize it. Each student gets a number. Numbers 1-5 turn in their papers on the first day. Numbers 6-10 on the second day, and so on. Numbers change with each paper assignment throughout the semester.
And while we're randomizing, keep your name off of your paper! I'll record your name and number separately, and in the meantime, I will grade your paper blind. I won't know whether you're a male writing a feminist paper, a light-skinned person writing about minority issues, a female writing a reactionary paper, and so on; I also won't know whether you're the one who sits up front with the sandals and the ingrown toenail or the smart-aleck who amuses me until you overstep the boundaries. I won't know if you're the one who never says anything or the one who talks incessantly (to your fellow athletes) or texts while I'm talking. And that will be for the better. Unless you talk to me during office hourse about you're paper. Then, I will know you--and that will be to your advantage. So really, it will be like an online class, or like the certificate projects. I will grade gradually, as the papers come in, and I will know nothing about you, or will have forgotten everything I know. So much for bias.
Now, about grading and returning papers--basically, workflow. What would this look like? Ideally, the grading would begin as the papers are submitted. If 5 are submitted on Monday, those 5 should be read and comments written by Wednesday's class--or even by Tuesday. If the grading stops, the papers pile up and the system doesn't work. Since this system is based on an online process, it is well-suited to online feedback, though it could work with paper as well. But stacks of papers bother me more than quantities of email, so I would eschew paper and opt for electronic communication.
And yes, classes go on, and someone still has to teach them. But in between the classes are the office hours, when perhaps someone will grade me with their presence--but perhaps not. And I will grade. Because after all, when you're working 40-hours a week, you're pretty much expected to be productive while the clock is ticking. There would certainly be additional opportunities for flexibility in an academic job as compared to an office job--grading/office hours in the library, for example. The loss would be working in place. The gain would be time to research or write, or do the more pleasurable parts of the job, like reading or prepping, or even *gasp* time to spend with friends and family outside of the grading-teaching time frame (whatever it might be). This is how I would do it.
If it sounds rather like I would be tricking myself into doing work, that's probably accurate. But might there be good pedagogical reasons for this approach?
Let's take grades. So far, I have not mentioned them. Grades could be assessed at the reading and commenting stage. But why? So that I would not have to read another round of the same papers? That is a compelling reason. But it is not making use of the pedagogical potential of the writing assignment. As I mentioned, the certificate projects are additional teaching and learning opportunities. Because, while some people are able to make the leap and apply the concepts and use the tools that they have acquired--or even remember the information--most, in my experience, are not. Why? Because they are lost in their own minds, in their own obligations and job duties. They sit through the classes. They might pick up a thing or two. But if, when they return to their desks, they do not use what they learned, they forget. And so with students. Particularly nontraditional students.
So let's make the first round a learning opportunity. You submit. I read. I comment. I make suggestions. Corrections. I am your boss. This is what I want. You comply, or you will not receive a good evaluation. That is the bottom line. But of course, you are expressing yourself, at least in part, so the liberal educator in me (liberal in the classical sense) will allow for that individual expression insofar as it represents a coherent part of the essay. And then, you will show what you have learned. And I will grade according to what I have seen and according to your final project. I will assess your learning along with your paper. You will move forward. We will move forward together. Ideally, you will receive your paper and your grade at a conference appointment, where we can discuss what else it might take for you to improve. Outline goals. Performance objectives. Blending the workplace with the classroom. Did you know that many human resources degrees are housed in education departments?
I've been working in a department under human resources for too long. It may be that my ideas about teaching are becoming sanitized. Certainly, I only have the leisure to think about this because I am *not* grading 75-150 papers at a time. Undoubtedly. But of the things that are wrong with teaching, I think the utter dread and resentment of grading is a big one. Papers represent an opportunity to teach, and an opportunity to see into the minds of our students. Everyone could stand to take them more seriously. I also know that this model is better for those who are teaching 2-3 classes rather than 5-6. But--isn't that true of every thorough, student-centered method? Not the ones that are designed to take the pressure off the instructor under the guise of a decentered classroom. You know the ones I mean. And yet, I really am thinking about how I would like to do things. I would make the workweek a little bit more like the 8-5 crowd, in order to get what I need to do done more efficiently.
Because you know what? Right now, I would give just about anything to be sitting in an office grading 5 or 10 papers, preparing students for future successes and considering how their minds and their methods are developing in response to what I have set before them. If I could fit that into my 8-5 day, and reflect at home on how I can improve the next day, or the next week, or the next semester... I would gladly be tied to an office 40 hours a week in service of my real vocation.
Thinking about grading, I remember it as the most odious task of teaching. And yet, here I am, skimming quickly through these documents created for the certificate program, giving feedback, receiving resubmissions. The one major difference is volume. There are times, like now, when I do get all three parts of the project at one time, or components from three or four different certificate program participants. But that's it. And really? It's not so bad. I look through them. I tell them what changes to make. I send them back. They get to them whenever they can. This would be the ideal model for online distance learning, though of course I would have to assign grades at some point. But then I wonder--if sitting back and giving feedback is relatively easy, what is it that made grading so odious?
The answer has to be the bulk of essays and the time pressure. I hate to feel pressured, and yet it is necessary for me to feel pressured or I will accomplish nothing but blog posts or Facebook status updates--sad though that is to write. So why not stagger deadlines or feedback sessions? (Feedback sessions were my way of justifying particularly long turnaround times for graded papers. Feedback on the previous paper and the grade would be given along with advice for the next paper during a session of office hours. There would be a sign-up sheet. Sometimes these would replace class for a couple of days.)
This stays with me. Why do we grade papers in bulk? It's the dominant method, but whom does it serve? Not the instructor, who has this mountain of intimidation to face. Even when I was interested in the topics, or looking forward to reading student responses to an assignment, anticipation of the grading marathon inevitably forced me to procrastination.
Does grading in bulk serve the students? This is a harder question, because the grading inevitably becomes sloppier, the comments less helpful, the grades more arbitrary the deeper I get into the stack. And yet, I think one reason that we would not give out papers until everyone's paper had been graded was to maintain the semblence (illusion?) of fairness. But their is always some bias. The more workshops I attend on "subtle bias," and the longer I work in an office around people who are supposed to be aware of their biases, the more I conclude what I already believed--that bias is inevitable. Most of it, however, is personal. There were students whose papers I graded harder, though I didn't mean to, because they were pushing my buttons in class, or because they thought they were smart, or because I knew (and I hated it when teachers did this to me) that they could do better. Maybe I wasn't guilty of each one of these. I certainly did what I could to avoid it, but sometimes perhaps only blind submissions would have prevented it.
Where I failed in grading was usually through the carelessness of exhanustion. The last papers came after the previous papers, and looked either a lot better... or else a lot worse by comparison. I was tired and weary of errors and repetition. My handwriting got sloppy. Inevitably, I had promised these grades by the next day and would catch hell or reproving glances if I did not deliver. My feedback got thin or harsh. And I probably didn't think as much about the grade, perhaps relying solely on my rubric to avoid the unclouded judgment that 2 A.M. (or 30 minutes before class) would not grant.
So given my insight, what would I do differently? Well, for starters, I would like to see papers come in at a trickle rather than in bulk. With a clear head and a clear idea of the objectives of the assignment and how to determine whether those objectives were met, I think the inconsistency of grading would take care of itself without having to "rank" papers and compare A to A and B to B and so on (which I never had time to do anyway, though that was the ideal).
But what about fairness and due dates? In the real world, different people have different deadlines. That's just the way of things. You can't complain of fairness forever, because at some point it breaks down. It could break down here, but there would be a lot of whining. So let's randomize it. Each student gets a number. Numbers 1-5 turn in their papers on the first day. Numbers 6-10 on the second day, and so on. Numbers change with each paper assignment throughout the semester.
And while we're randomizing, keep your name off of your paper! I'll record your name and number separately, and in the meantime, I will grade your paper blind. I won't know whether you're a male writing a feminist paper, a light-skinned person writing about minority issues, a female writing a reactionary paper, and so on; I also won't know whether you're the one who sits up front with the sandals and the ingrown toenail or the smart-aleck who amuses me until you overstep the boundaries. I won't know if you're the one who never says anything or the one who talks incessantly (to your fellow athletes) or texts while I'm talking. And that will be for the better. Unless you talk to me during office hourse about you're paper. Then, I will know you--and that will be to your advantage. So really, it will be like an online class, or like the certificate projects. I will grade gradually, as the papers come in, and I will know nothing about you, or will have forgotten everything I know. So much for bias.
Now, about grading and returning papers--basically, workflow. What would this look like? Ideally, the grading would begin as the papers are submitted. If 5 are submitted on Monday, those 5 should be read and comments written by Wednesday's class--or even by Tuesday. If the grading stops, the papers pile up and the system doesn't work. Since this system is based on an online process, it is well-suited to online feedback, though it could work with paper as well. But stacks of papers bother me more than quantities of email, so I would eschew paper and opt for electronic communication.
And yes, classes go on, and someone still has to teach them. But in between the classes are the office hours, when perhaps someone will grade me with their presence--but perhaps not. And I will grade. Because after all, when you're working 40-hours a week, you're pretty much expected to be productive while the clock is ticking. There would certainly be additional opportunities for flexibility in an academic job as compared to an office job--grading/office hours in the library, for example. The loss would be working in place. The gain would be time to research or write, or do the more pleasurable parts of the job, like reading or prepping, or even *gasp* time to spend with friends and family outside of the grading-teaching time frame (whatever it might be). This is how I would do it.
If it sounds rather like I would be tricking myself into doing work, that's probably accurate. But might there be good pedagogical reasons for this approach?
Let's take grades. So far, I have not mentioned them. Grades could be assessed at the reading and commenting stage. But why? So that I would not have to read another round of the same papers? That is a compelling reason. But it is not making use of the pedagogical potential of the writing assignment. As I mentioned, the certificate projects are additional teaching and learning opportunities. Because, while some people are able to make the leap and apply the concepts and use the tools that they have acquired--or even remember the information--most, in my experience, are not. Why? Because they are lost in their own minds, in their own obligations and job duties. They sit through the classes. They might pick up a thing or two. But if, when they return to their desks, they do not use what they learned, they forget. And so with students. Particularly nontraditional students.
So let's make the first round a learning opportunity. You submit. I read. I comment. I make suggestions. Corrections. I am your boss. This is what I want. You comply, or you will not receive a good evaluation. That is the bottom line. But of course, you are expressing yourself, at least in part, so the liberal educator in me (liberal in the classical sense) will allow for that individual expression insofar as it represents a coherent part of the essay. And then, you will show what you have learned. And I will grade according to what I have seen and according to your final project. I will assess your learning along with your paper. You will move forward. We will move forward together. Ideally, you will receive your paper and your grade at a conference appointment, where we can discuss what else it might take for you to improve. Outline goals. Performance objectives. Blending the workplace with the classroom. Did you know that many human resources degrees are housed in education departments?
I've been working in a department under human resources for too long. It may be that my ideas about teaching are becoming sanitized. Certainly, I only have the leisure to think about this because I am *not* grading 75-150 papers at a time. Undoubtedly. But of the things that are wrong with teaching, I think the utter dread and resentment of grading is a big one. Papers represent an opportunity to teach, and an opportunity to see into the minds of our students. Everyone could stand to take them more seriously. I also know that this model is better for those who are teaching 2-3 classes rather than 5-6. But--isn't that true of every thorough, student-centered method? Not the ones that are designed to take the pressure off the instructor under the guise of a decentered classroom. You know the ones I mean. And yet, I really am thinking about how I would like to do things. I would make the workweek a little bit more like the 8-5 crowd, in order to get what I need to do done more efficiently.
Because you know what? Right now, I would give just about anything to be sitting in an office grading 5 or 10 papers, preparing students for future successes and considering how their minds and their methods are developing in response to what I have set before them. If I could fit that into my 8-5 day, and reflect at home on how I can improve the next day, or the next week, or the next semester... I would gladly be tied to an office 40 hours a week in service of my real vocation.
Thursday, May 8, 2014
Discovering my "Strengths"
So my newest foray into introspection and self-analysis has been to take the "Discover Your Strengths" class offered by my department, which is based on the ideas of Donald O. Clifton, and the book Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath. The book amounts to an explanation of the traits identified by the online quiz, which is not unlike the Myers-Briggs quizzes, but often presented pairs of choices that were difficult or simply didn't fit. However, even with the "Neutral" responses I gave discounted, the results seemed pretty spot-on, and served to explain much of my frustration, and reinforce my opinions of what I want out of my work.
There are other factors, of course. These "Strengths" are "Themes," and "Themes" are clusters of "Talents," which might be described as attributes, inclinations, or affinities. Your "Strengths" derive from (or are developed by--the verbage is fuzzy) the application of Themes and result in near-perfection. As far as I can see, most of mine are innate rather than something that can be developed through practice, but okay. Being geared toward business, and in my setting, toward the development of nonacademic professionals and staff so that they can perform their jobs with more personal satisfaction to the benefit of the university (as cogs in a wheel), what's missing for me is the consideration of what motivates people. Is the exercise of one of your "Themes" motivation in itself? That seems to be the understanding and implication. So while the upshot is to try to maximize your opportunity to do the things that use your strengths, the motivation seems to be "for the good of the department" or "to grow" in some nebulous sort of way. Those don't work for me. Putting myself in the service of others just for the sake of doing so, or to make money or be "part of the team" is not where I blossom--and my strengths sort of attest to that. They don't really lend themselves to utility. Also, making more money by doing what I'm good at doesn't motivate me--so consulting for others, or using my problem solving to help others overcome their obstacles will only make me feel worse, because I'm using what I have for others' benefits. Money is not a benefit in itself, particularly right now.
What strikes me in particular is that my particular strengths are the strength-set of someone higher in the heirarchy, or someone working in those free-flowing, idea-tossing work environments like Pixar and Google--or are the strengths of a self-motivated academic who doesn't have to wait for others in order to execute plans and ideas. I do not work in the former environment, and I do not have the opporunity to be the latter. Everything has to be ratified by someone here, and it takes 6 months or more. Even a Facebook page. By the time the opportunity comes around, I'm bored with the idea--or have realized that I can't tolerate the constraints imposed (like having someone approve every single Facebook post).
What drives me batty is that these "Strengths" or "Themes" are not the same parts of speech, and that some of them are not even real words. If I were conceptualizing something, there would be an element of linguistic consistency!
Take a look. I feel validated in one thing: I am an idea person. No one can take that away. I can see different possible paths and outcomes--which sometimes leads to inaction. I think deeply about things. Thinking fuels my ideas and helps me strategize--so those three are mutually reinforcing. And I want to take action when I have an idea, and bring people along--so when I have to wait, I give up. And when I can't get others involved or exceited, I get frustrated.
Individualization is my favorite, because it takes me into the realm of understanding people rather than ideas and things. It's right in the middle of my 5 strengths (which are drawn from 34 possible labels), and that seems significant somehow. I have always admired people who are able to look at someone, understand their potential, and make things happen so that that person can grow and blossom, performing appropriate work that he or she finds interesting and significant. I have wanted someone to do that for me, but no one ever has. And now I know that I am that person. All of the little things that I notice about people are a strength. And I find that that validates something I believe in--the individuality and uniqueness of people. It was a teaching strength--and since I have matured since I last taught an academic class, it might be more of one now. You learn a lot working with staff. So many faculty never learn to work with people. I could really contribute a lot...
At the bottom of my five is the desire to make things happen--to get things started. And considering my struggle with motivation, this might seem odd. But I don't think so. Motivation carries you through to the end. Sometimes, I'm not interested in the end, because I can clearly see what it will or could be. But mostly, when I have an idea, I want to stop everything and pursue it. If I don't make it to the end, it's probably because there's nothing to tie me to the idea--no professional gain, no sense of being admired, of being heard, or being appreciated or valued, or of being any use to anyone. That can be alienating, and can--and often does--take the wind out of my sails. But it doesn't make me any less excited right at the start. It just makes me move on or give up more quickly.
So yes, this is me, as much as my Myers-Briggs INFP is me, because that places me in the "starry-eyed dreamer" realm as well. And this is why my greatest pleasure is to present ideas and see them take root in others and inspire them to have ideas of their own--my ideas interact with the unique qualities that others possess, and create something new. I need to get back there someday.
Source: http://www.strengthstest.com/theme_summary.php
| Ideation® | People strong in the Ideation theme are fascinated by ideas. They are able to find connections between seemingly disparate phenomena. |
| StrategicTM | People strong in the Strategic theme create alternative ways to proceed. Faced with any given scenario, they can quickly spot the relevant patterns and issues. |
| Individualization® | People strong in the Individualization theme are intrigued with the unique qualities of each person. They have a gift for figuring out how people who are different can work together productively. |
| Intellection® | People strong in the Intellection theme are characterized by their intellectual activity. They are introspective and appreciate intellectual discussions. |
| Activator® | People strong in the Activator theme can make things happen by turning thoughts into action. They are often impatient. |
IDEATION
The genius of your Ideation talent begins with your love of ideas and the way you so
quickly learn new ideas, concepts, and principles. But you are not passive. It is as if you
take ideas and then begin spinning them around in your mind. With each new idea you
learn, you tend to think about it over and over—spinning it around with the many other
ideas you already have. The result of this thinking, turning, and spinning around of new
ideas with what you already know does two things. First, you generate new connections
and insights about ideas and their implications. Second, the spinning of your ideas often
results in new ideas. Therefore, the genius of the Ideation talent is the creativity of generating new ideas and insights as a result of contemplating and reviewing the ideas
you have learned.
STRATEGIC
The genius of your Strategic talent involves the way you think and generate alternatives.
When faced with a problem or a dilemma you can quickly generate multiple alternatives
to circumvent obstacles that prevent your progress. Sometimes you think in a backwards
manner by first visualizing the outcome you want to produce and then generating
multiple alternative paths to get to that objective. But your genius of Strategic doesn’t
simply begin and end with generating alternatives. The real genius of this strength is
found in the way that you can quickly sort through the various alternative paths and
determine the one that will work best and most efficiently.
INDIVIDUALIZATION
The genius of your Individualization talent is that you see each and every person and a
one of a kind, distinct individual. But more than that, you see the particular factors,
qualities, characteristics, thoughts, and perception that make each person distinct. You
see each person as a mosaic of highly individual factors each of which contribute to a
person’s distinctiveness. This includes both personal qualities and past events that have
formed the person. You are curious about their individual characteristics and you find
yourself thinking and asking questions about what makes each person so distinct. This
results in people feeling special and prized by your attention. But all of this simply lays a
foundation for the genius of your Individualization. Your genius is that armed with all of
this thinking and question asking, you attempt to interact with each person based on their
individual qualities. This leads to meaningful and very helpful relationships.
INTELLECTION
The genius of your Intellection talents stems from the quality of your thinking. You think
about ideas, concepts, and principles in great depth. It is as if you hold discussions in
your mind about ideas, concepts, observations, and new learnings. This results in deep
learning, deep understanding, and deep appreciation for the best knowledge. Out of this
deep processing, you often come to new insights and understandings. But the greatest
aspect of the genius of your intellection is the wisdom that you gain from your in-depth
thinking and internal discussions. You can think by yourself for hours, but never doubt
what results: wisdom, clarity, and a firm foundation for action planning and decision
making.
ACTIVATOR
The genius of your Activator talent begins with the concept of action. You want action
and you can make things happen. Most of all, the genius of your Activator talent gives
you the ability to see how to make things happen. Whereas others have ideas that only
swim around in their minds, you can quickly see how to turn ideas into actions, programs,
and services. This points to the greatest aspect of the genius of your Activator talent. You
are creative and very innovative. Finally, you have a tremendous amount of motivation,
energy, and personal power when it comes to taking an idea and then putting it into
action. You are particularly motivated to be innovative in turning your ideas into action,
programs, and services. You are a dynamo in turning ideas into actions that generate
revolutionary changes.
Source: https://www.apu.edu/strengthsacademy/pdfs/genius_beauty_found_within.pdf
Source: https://www.apu.edu/strengthsacademy/pdfs/genius_beauty_found_within.pdf
Applying Ideation Strengths in Careers
These observations and suggestions will help you consider careers that could best suit Ideation strengths. As you think them over, select those that apply to you best.
- Build on your creativity to find a career that encourages you to think freely and express your ideas.
- Find work in which others like your ideas and in which you are expected to keep learning.
- You will be able to find new and better ways of doing things within the organization.
- Select an organization where the leaders encourage and solicit your divergent thinking, stimulating them to consider some new approaches.
Applying Strategic Strengths in Careers
These observations and suggestions will help you consider careers that could best suit Strategic strengths. As you think them over, select those that apply to you best.
- Consider psychology, as it requires understanding situations and being able to discover or provide effective problem solving.
- A career in law may excite you, as it requires the use of logic to build cases and find creative and effective ways to present them.
- Choose careers that will allow you to be a leader and voice your ideas.
- List the various paths possible in your future so you can give careful thought to each one.
- Consider consulting. The question is, who do you want to consult with, and what do you want them to consult you about?
Applying Individualization Strengths in Careers
These observations and suggestions will help you consider careers that could best suit Individualization strengths. As you think them over, selectthose that apply to you best.
- A career in education would directly use your talents because you would value and treat each student as an individual.
- As a supervisor or manager, you would help individuals determine what they could do what they do best on a regular basis. Your evaluations would be based on who the person is and on what he or she had accomplished.
- Counseling could be a fulfilling role for you. Your ability to see people as distinct individuals will empower them and help them grow.
- Writing a novel would allow you to fully develop the uniqueness of each character.
Applying Intellection Strengths in Careers
These observations and suggestions will help you consider careers that could best suit Intellection strengths. As you think them over, select those that apply to you best.
- Choose work that will challenge you intellectually.
- Choose a work environment that matches your most productive thinking environment. If you think best when it’s quiet, choose a quiet work environment. If working with others stimulates your thinking, choose to work in a team environment.
- Select work where you can share ideas and pose questions.
- Look at careers in which you can interact with colleagues and have philosophical debates.
Applying Activator Strengths in Careers
These observations and suggestions will help you consider careers that could best suit Activator strengths. As you think them over, select those that apply to you best.
- Define what kind of leader you are. A thought leader? A giver of orders? A leader who gives the go-ahead signal? Large group leader?
- Small group leader? A leader with a mission? A profit leader? An athlete leader?
- Identify informal leadership roles within professions, companies, or departments into which you can step. Persuade coworkers that they can increase productivity, solve problems, launch programs, overcome obstacles, and bounce back from defeat.
- Find work that allows you to make your own decisions, and then act upon them.
- Consider becoming your own boss. Make of list of possible businesses you could start, grow, and sell once they show a profit. Understand that you will probably lose interest once an enterprise is so fine-tuned that it runs on its own. Recall how maintaining an operation has led to boredom in the past.
- Choose a career in which “actions speak louder than words” even though your words can propel people into action. Thoroughly research professions, organizations, and companies to identify the ones that are truly results-oriented.
- Understand that some supervisors and managers may feel threatened by your insistence on making decisions and acting without delay.
The Clifton StrengthsFinder and the 34 Clifton StrengthsFinder theme names are protected by copyright of Gallup Inc., 2000. All rights reserved.
Saturday, April 5, 2014
Giving Ourselves Over... to Sleep
I find myself seeking out my old blog tonight, after a long, tired day, and a long, tired week, and two nights of lonely, broken sleep, fraught with listening. I rarely sit and reflect on what I'm doing, or how I'm feeling and why. Or I do, but not in a way that is productive--rather, my focus has, for a long time, been on what might have been my profession, and what has not gone as planned. And when I have the rare thought, I am too tired, and chase it away. But perhaps a certain type of exhaustion lends a bit of clarity...
The first time my husband went on a trip to Mexico, I wrote here about my joy on his return. After four years have passed, many trips later, I still find his travel difficult, though differently so. I confessed to him, and I'm afraid that it has not made his leaving any easier, that I find it difficult to decide to go to sleep when he is away. It isn't exactly that I find it difficult to sleep... I simply don't want to take the definitive step in deciding to go to sleep. It is sometimes like this when he is home as well, but I have him to obligate me to sleep. I have my motivation, and my company. In spite of being an introvert, I would rather sit in silence with him than without. But there is more... I dislike being the last person awake in a house at night.
At night, when I am alone and awake, I hear noises. On the first night he was gone this week, it was very windy. When it became clear that my morning obligations were going to require me to submit to sleep, I brought a book to bed that I was too tired to read, and turned on a lamp in my bedroom. Once there, I heard a creak, and thought, first, that my Doodle, now 8 with a bad head cold, had awoken. So I walked our apartment, checking for waking children and opening doors. But everything was as it should be; everyone in his or her bed. So I returned to mine, this time checking email. Again, I heard the creaking. Again, I walked the hall and each room until I was sure that there was nothing wrong. This happened maybe another time or two, and then I decided that the creaking was outside, likely the gate to our small yard, which should be closed tight, but had probably blown open from the wind. It was logical, but not satisfying; I felt vulnerable. In the morning, I discovered that it was not the gate at all.
The second night is always easier. It's not that I get used to being alone at night. Rather, I reassure myself more easily, and fall asleep more quickly, being tired from the first night. Last night, I was tired. I fell asleep shortly after turning on the television. I fell back to sleep after my son said goodnight. I missed a message from my husband. Fortunately, I woke to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and then went to sleep.
Last night, there was a storm. A regular gale, it whipped though the trees, and finally cut the power off. A moment later, Doodle was coughing. With my phone as a light, I found her in the next room, gave her water and medicine, and tucked her in. Then, I lit the way for her to use the bathroom. When I returned her to her bed, she was wide awake--and I was more so. In a moment, her sister was disturbed, though not quire awake. Both were somewhat troubled by the dark. So I brought them with me.
I was, as always when I am worried about them, more relaxed with them near. But I was even more relaxed once the electricity came on, and hour or more later, and slept soundly for two hours at least. And here I am now, unusually awake, not letting myself drift until I am unable to think about hearing sounds in the house, not staying partially awake until the choice of whether or not to abandon control of my surroundings is no longer my own.
Tonight, my son stayed up with me, watching Clue. When he was heading to bed, he, too, heard a creak. It reminded me so much of myself that I smiled a bit. There he was, checking outside. Checking the front door. Checking on his sisters. All was well, as I knew it would be.
Sleep should not be fearful, but I do find it so. To lose consciousness for those hours means relinquishing responsibility--not overseeing the house, abandoning the children to their own sleep, which we are taught from their infancy is a dangerous time. When I go to sleep, again I feel that we are vulnerable. It is, no doubt, a failure of trust--a failure to trust to God that the night and their sleep will continue, unwatched and unlistend-to by me.
But when I am not alone, it is different. We decide, together, to abandon our spaces and our children to sleep. It is a responsibility that must be shared--the responsibility of letting go. I have never thought of sleep as an act of faith, but it is. I have pondered, during these nights, the lines of the children's prayer, "if I should die before I wake..." which has seemed to me both morbid and historically accurate, but which seemed innocent to me as a child, and perhaps comforting. Having more fear of death now, and people to protect, I do not find them as comforting, though they do still carry an innocence. But they carry a deep wisdom: that giving ourselves over to sleep is an act of faith, a trust in God. For me, I am not there yet. It is a leap that I take best when accompanied by the one I love, whom I will see tomorrow. Good night.
The first time my husband went on a trip to Mexico, I wrote here about my joy on his return. After four years have passed, many trips later, I still find his travel difficult, though differently so. I confessed to him, and I'm afraid that it has not made his leaving any easier, that I find it difficult to decide to go to sleep when he is away. It isn't exactly that I find it difficult to sleep... I simply don't want to take the definitive step in deciding to go to sleep. It is sometimes like this when he is home as well, but I have him to obligate me to sleep. I have my motivation, and my company. In spite of being an introvert, I would rather sit in silence with him than without. But there is more... I dislike being the last person awake in a house at night.
At night, when I am alone and awake, I hear noises. On the first night he was gone this week, it was very windy. When it became clear that my morning obligations were going to require me to submit to sleep, I brought a book to bed that I was too tired to read, and turned on a lamp in my bedroom. Once there, I heard a creak, and thought, first, that my Doodle, now 8 with a bad head cold, had awoken. So I walked our apartment, checking for waking children and opening doors. But everything was as it should be; everyone in his or her bed. So I returned to mine, this time checking email. Again, I heard the creaking. Again, I walked the hall and each room until I was sure that there was nothing wrong. This happened maybe another time or two, and then I decided that the creaking was outside, likely the gate to our small yard, which should be closed tight, but had probably blown open from the wind. It was logical, but not satisfying; I felt vulnerable. In the morning, I discovered that it was not the gate at all.
The second night is always easier. It's not that I get used to being alone at night. Rather, I reassure myself more easily, and fall asleep more quickly, being tired from the first night. Last night, I was tired. I fell asleep shortly after turning on the television. I fell back to sleep after my son said goodnight. I missed a message from my husband. Fortunately, I woke to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and then went to sleep.
Last night, there was a storm. A regular gale, it whipped though the trees, and finally cut the power off. A moment later, Doodle was coughing. With my phone as a light, I found her in the next room, gave her water and medicine, and tucked her in. Then, I lit the way for her to use the bathroom. When I returned her to her bed, she was wide awake--and I was more so. In a moment, her sister was disturbed, though not quire awake. Both were somewhat troubled by the dark. So I brought them with me.
I was, as always when I am worried about them, more relaxed with them near. But I was even more relaxed once the electricity came on, and hour or more later, and slept soundly for two hours at least. And here I am now, unusually awake, not letting myself drift until I am unable to think about hearing sounds in the house, not staying partially awake until the choice of whether or not to abandon control of my surroundings is no longer my own.
Tonight, my son stayed up with me, watching Clue. When he was heading to bed, he, too, heard a creak. It reminded me so much of myself that I smiled a bit. There he was, checking outside. Checking the front door. Checking on his sisters. All was well, as I knew it would be.
Sleep should not be fearful, but I do find it so. To lose consciousness for those hours means relinquishing responsibility--not overseeing the house, abandoning the children to their own sleep, which we are taught from their infancy is a dangerous time. When I go to sleep, again I feel that we are vulnerable. It is, no doubt, a failure of trust--a failure to trust to God that the night and their sleep will continue, unwatched and unlistend-to by me.
But when I am not alone, it is different. We decide, together, to abandon our spaces and our children to sleep. It is a responsibility that must be shared--the responsibility of letting go. I have never thought of sleep as an act of faith, but it is. I have pondered, during these nights, the lines of the children's prayer, "if I should die before I wake..." which has seemed to me both morbid and historically accurate, but which seemed innocent to me as a child, and perhaps comforting. Having more fear of death now, and people to protect, I do not find them as comforting, though they do still carry an innocence. But they carry a deep wisdom: that giving ourselves over to sleep is an act of faith, a trust in God. For me, I am not there yet. It is a leap that I take best when accompanied by the one I love, whom I will see tomorrow. Good night.
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Teaching Literature and Writing with Meyers-Briggs
1962 - first published instrument
Personal narrative - a standard composition genre since when, exactly?
Problem with personal narrative is that there is no particular shape to the reflection; M-B can provide the shape
Also would work in lit to confront personal preference head on - blog assignments to reflect on how students engage with the text from a perspective of self-awareness informed by M-B
Personal narrative - a standard composition genre since when, exactly?
Problem with personal narrative is that there is no particular shape to the reflection; M-B can provide the shape
Also would work in lit to confront personal preference head on - blog assignments to reflect on how students engage with the text from a perspective of self-awareness informed by M-B
Monday, February 10, 2014
Fiction Book Club Selections for the Training Department
During a break in this morning's team meeting, I had a great idea. Thinking about ways to bring what I love to our department, I thought--wow! Wouldn't it be cool to have a book club! Given the inclinations of the others in the department, though, I would have to find a way to make sure we didn't drift toward nonfiction. I know! We could arrange our selections thematically to correspond with the classes we teach, or topics we promote, or--even better!--to correspond with our "certificate programs," which bring everything together (classes, philosophy, whatever). Unfortuately, when I started brainstorming, this is what happened:
- Web Design - Burning Chrome by William Gobson
- Desktop Publishing - The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot
- Personal Development - The Hunger Games trilogy
- Office Administration - "Bartleby, the Scrivener" by Herman Melville
- Diversity - Beloved by Toni Morrison
- Communication Styles - Ulysses by James Joyce; Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf; The Stranger by Albert Camus
Yeah... Perhaps I'll wait to propose this. Indefinitely.
Monday, February 3, 2014
Doing What you Love. . . Or Not
Lately, this article has been circulating among my friends on Facebook. Titled, "In the Name of Love" and printed first by Jacobin Magazine and then by Slate, the article is a timely response to the job market and unemployment crises. It traces our job angst and the exploitation of professional labor to bad job advice--namely, "do what you love."
Blaming the individual for explotation is a "blaming the victim" model.
1. Graduate and professional programs and the workforce are full of people who are in it for the money.
2. Being saitisfied with your work is an ROI for employers--and not for the reasons you think.
In HR, we focus on knowing your strengths, and helping supervisors identify talent and nurture growth. Why? Because even if the bottom line is not your fulfillment, a satisfied employee is a productive employee.
3. Salaried office jobs are "salaried"--that is, non-hourly--to allow for the employee to work overtime without compensation in order to get projects done. It's not just teachers and academics.
4. Doing what we love on our own time is great in theory, but rarely practical.
5. If we don't do what we love--or at least like--we allow work to kill our souls.
What about a vocation?
Isn't it a little socialist to just do what society requires of us?
Blaming the individual for explotation is a "blaming the victim" model.
1. Graduate and professional programs and the workforce are full of people who are in it for the money.
2. Being saitisfied with your work is an ROI for employers--and not for the reasons you think.
In HR, we focus on knowing your strengths, and helping supervisors identify talent and nurture growth. Why? Because even if the bottom line is not your fulfillment, a satisfied employee is a productive employee.
3. Salaried office jobs are "salaried"--that is, non-hourly--to allow for the employee to work overtime without compensation in order to get projects done. It's not just teachers and academics.
4. Doing what we love on our own time is great in theory, but rarely practical.
5. If we don't do what we love--or at least like--we allow work to kill our souls.
What about a vocation?
Isn't it a little socialist to just do what society requires of us?
--making a job out of what you love is not necessarily the problem--the problem is how you frame "doing what you love."
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Lessons from the Staff Side: Faculty and Customer Service
Something I have been thinking more and more about since working in a cutomer-serving department, and in a training department that teaches--and requires--customer service--is the idea that faculty should consider what customer service actually means. I do come from an academic background--a background to which I am still dearly attached, and I would love to bring it to the foreground if I could. So I know how faculty bristle--how I used to bristle--at the suggestion that faculty are in any way providing customer service, or at the idea that students are in any way customers or consumers.
The first problem is that the "customer service" model is often misunderstood both by those promoting it for political reasons and those who are resisting it. Students and their parents see a "customer service" model as meaning that education exists, and is provided to the student/customer, to serve the purpose designated by the student. This is seriously misguided. The customer, if customer they would be, must assess the service provider first to determine whether the service being offered meets his or her needs, and whether the service provider, in fact, is capable of delivering the product needed, particularly when there are other providers available. The informed consumer does not go to a vegetarian restaurant and order steak, or to McDonald's and order Kobe beef or sushi. If she shops for auto parts at Target or Kroger, she must be prepared to find their offerings severely limited. If she goes to a hospital to get a pedicure, or to a salon to have an appendectomy, she will necessarily be disappointed. The first step, then, is knowing what institutions of higher education claim to offer, and for what reason. What are they, in fact, trying to do for the individual in general? Individual professors support their own reserach missions and pedagogical theories, putting those in the service of the departmental mission, which in turn serves the overall mission of the institution, which might advance a statewide goal that is somehow tied to the legislature's goals for development of citizens in the case of a state university. They are thus charged with delivering the product and service deemed appropriate by their institution, and they are given some freedom in how they interpret the delivery. To drill down and say that a professor should not be burdoning students with nonultilitarian information because the student is a customer, and the professor should be giving the customer only what he needs is ludicrous. Being a smart consumer means understanding what you are buying.
On the other hand, professors (used broadly here, because I think academics of all stripes, and lecturers, and faculty of universities and colleges alike take issue) balk at the idea that there is a "customer service model" of education.** And it is possible that I am not strictly speaking about a model of education, but an attitude. So what does a faculty member hear when someone suggests that education should be seen in terms of customer service? I would suggest, first, that they interpret the phrase in much the same way as the students, or else they recognize the students' and parents' assumptions and react against those. Customer-service oriented education might seem inherently utilitarian, designed to prepare students in a very practical, focused way, for "real life," which usually translates into "getting a job." Whatever the failings of educational curricula, putting education in the service of employment is not something I want to advocate--or even to address here. The other implication is that "service" means slavish devotion to students. Providing multiple opportunities to make the grade. Extra extra credit. Perhaps even certain types of lectures and exams. As far as that goes, there are already huge initiatives to understand how students learn and to make efforts to design curricula, courses, assignments and even to restructure classrooms and redefine the teacher in order to maximize student learning. This is everywhere. Sometimes, it actually benefits the professor by removing the pressure for them to perform. They become mediators and mentors--not at all a bad role, unless they become superfluous, replaced by monitors and mediators who are less expensive and require less maintenance. There is some anxiety about this as tenure track disappears and adjuncts abound. So in terms of methodology, "student centered" might as well mean "customer-service oriented." The basic approach--taking the needs of those who are on the receiving end of the product or service into account--is the same. Do students see this as customer service? Not necessarily. Will they make unreasonable demands in the name of customer service? Absolutely.
I think that in terms of pedagogy, a customer-service orientation might mean focusing on the journey or process rather than the product. In an age of measurable objectives, we focus on testing, testing, testing... But those who train, or teach classes to blue-collar professions realize that not everyone tests well, and that sometimes the artificiality of a test is not the best indicator of skill, knowledge, or mastery. There are ways to evaluate during the process of learning. In a training environment, where there are no tests, and yet where we have to try to deliver courses that help people learn, we need to develop exercises that allow people to try out what they have learned in an environment where they can ask questions and receive feedback and instruction. Some people come and do not want to learn, and since it is their time, I can't really do too much about that lack of motivation. If they sit through my class, it goes on their transcript, and they might receive a higher yearly evaluation because of it. I can't help that situation. I'm not going to report to the boss that they were shopping for shoes for the entire 6 hours. But when they return to their desks, unless they already had the skills I taught, they will not have those skills at their disposal in their daily life. Because there is little real-world consequence, except perhaps if a doctor sleeps during Biology, education requires tests.
When I think about the process, though, I think about what leads up to the grades. Where are the opportunities for professors to monitor the learning process to see what is happening with a student before the test or paper due date? There are precious few in the models with which I am familiar, and all are student-intitiated. The reason they are few and student-initiated is that 1) the professor doesn't necessarily have the time or tools to get to know the student(s), and 2) there is an underlying assumption that forcing someone to ask for help has something to do with growing up. On a level, it does. But being open and available is important as well, and paving the way for someone to ask for help.
Let me describe two situations. One semseter when I was teaching Freshman composition, I had a student who came to class every day. She was very quiet, but listened attentively. She participated in daily activities. However, she never submitted a paper. I might have mentioned that to her casually in class once or twice, and she nodded. So she knew that she was behind, and hadn't turned in the work. Clearly, the burden was on her shoulders. It was easy to shrug it off--that meant one less paper to grade, however much I pitied her.
Consider another situation--a rigidly enforced departmental policy on word count. The students are warned that if their papers do not meet that word count--even if they are lacking only 2 words--the paper will not be graded. In the case of the final paper, it will not be read, though earlier papers--the finished, failed product--will receive feedback. Having already failed, how many of us will want the feedback? Even when I teach, if I feel that I have failed to deliver a class to my ability or my standards, I do not go looking for student feedback to tell me what I've done wrong. I already have a sense of my own inadequacy, thank you very much. So do students learn from that level of failure? We are told that if they don't fail, success will not be meaningful. But what is a meaningful failure? How does a teacher make failure meaningful? I'm not sure. But I don't think being beaten down and then invited in for more beating is going to do it. But when grading is as onorous as it is, and the students don't seem to care about our rules or our standards, it is easy to let the cynacism win. Let's face it, too--not all students are really interested in learning or playing the game. Motivations for being in school are much more complex than motivations for working. Working has a tangible result--a paycheck--even if it produces nothing else for the individual.
In a customer-serving department, we measure contact hours--how many hours we spend teaching multiplied by how many students we teach. It is important to have people value what we are doing, and they come to value our classes becuase they can see the progress they are making. So we try to facilitate that progress. They tell other people. We maintain our contact hours or increase them. We do operate on supply and demand, but so do academic departments. Courses that no one takes are not offered frequently, if at all. In the offices, advisors are interested in retaining majors--those numbers are good, too. But advisors are staff, and they are customer-serving positions. Faculty are different. Who cares if a faculty member pisses off a student? No one. Who cares if a staff member does? Everyone, including the faculty who happen to be involved with that student. Faculty are definitely a protected class, though I know that this varies, and not all faculty strive to piss off or offend students--though there are some who definitely do. They offend in order to make a point--I heard it from the Dean of Faculties recently, as he defended faculty methods to a group of staff members. But that's methodological. What about individual students?
Being in a staff position, or a customer-serving position, means that every time you are in contact with others, you are trying to facilitate matters to make certain that the customer feels good about the result. This has to do with equity as well as attitude. Most people who come to our department for training understand who we are and what our product is. They don't have to personally pay, so perhaps some of it is gratitiude for the opportunity (or the ability to escape work, though not all WANT to escape work), but they understand that we have guidelines to follow, and by and large, they respect those guidelines. There are certainly exceptions.
So when you want to actually maintain a relationship with your customers, you do things differently. Students are disposable, and they are a renewable resource. Different ones keep coming back, so there is no fear that faculty will become obsolete becaus students will choose not to come to classes. If your purpose is to fill someone with your subject or shape them in your own image, you don't actually have to care about how the process goes--especially if you're not held accountable. Where I am now, if someone is coming up to the time limit of a program, I can't just let them go and shrug. Of course I could. It is completely on their shoulders whether they finish a program or not. But what does it do to our contact hours if I let someone slip through the cracks? It's only one person. And the people that they don't tell about our wonderful programs and customer service. I'm working for word of mouth here. So I email. And I ask if they need any help or have any questions. And while some still don't answer, others will tell me what's going on. Some--working adults, older than me--confess that they were afraid to speak up. These are not children who need to be taught a lesson about growing up. These are people who think they know the constraints of our program, and don't want to impose. And I'm not nearly as intimidating as some professors I've had. And not nearly as scary as some grad students I've known. And Freshmen--let's face it--are 18. And have radically different personalities. They are people. And sometimes, they can't cope. Other times, they're just jerks. But you know? You can give them the benefit of the doubt, too. I have to. And customer service techniques teach you how to manage the jerks, too. Just watch the next time you're a jerk--they try to manipulate you with the same techniques I've learned. It's all rhetoric.
But the curious thing is that when you start considering the process, and how you can intervene and facilitate the success of a person or a situation, it becomes a habit, and requires much less effort. Granted, I'm tied to an office for 40 hours, so I have to send these emails, but really, it doesn't take very long. Thinking of a student as a customer simply in order to reorient you're thinking so that you make every reasonable effort to facilitate their success--THAT is what faculty customer service would look like. It's not the same as spoon feeding them. I'm not saying that you have to break the rules. Just start by asking, after you tell them what they need to do, "How can I help with this process?" Many times, they won't ask for anything. But I think, with students, many times we try to avoid contact hours rather than seeking them out. It's part of the institution.
**I forgot to mention that at the root of faculty resistance to customer service is that "service" sounds menial. Ego and the relative importance of faculty to the university are definitely factors.
The first problem is that the "customer service" model is often misunderstood both by those promoting it for political reasons and those who are resisting it. Students and their parents see a "customer service" model as meaning that education exists, and is provided to the student/customer, to serve the purpose designated by the student. This is seriously misguided. The customer, if customer they would be, must assess the service provider first to determine whether the service being offered meets his or her needs, and whether the service provider, in fact, is capable of delivering the product needed, particularly when there are other providers available. The informed consumer does not go to a vegetarian restaurant and order steak, or to McDonald's and order Kobe beef or sushi. If she shops for auto parts at Target or Kroger, she must be prepared to find their offerings severely limited. If she goes to a hospital to get a pedicure, or to a salon to have an appendectomy, she will necessarily be disappointed. The first step, then, is knowing what institutions of higher education claim to offer, and for what reason. What are they, in fact, trying to do for the individual in general? Individual professors support their own reserach missions and pedagogical theories, putting those in the service of the departmental mission, which in turn serves the overall mission of the institution, which might advance a statewide goal that is somehow tied to the legislature's goals for development of citizens in the case of a state university. They are thus charged with delivering the product and service deemed appropriate by their institution, and they are given some freedom in how they interpret the delivery. To drill down and say that a professor should not be burdoning students with nonultilitarian information because the student is a customer, and the professor should be giving the customer only what he needs is ludicrous. Being a smart consumer means understanding what you are buying.
On the other hand, professors (used broadly here, because I think academics of all stripes, and lecturers, and faculty of universities and colleges alike take issue) balk at the idea that there is a "customer service model" of education.** And it is possible that I am not strictly speaking about a model of education, but an attitude. So what does a faculty member hear when someone suggests that education should be seen in terms of customer service? I would suggest, first, that they interpret the phrase in much the same way as the students, or else they recognize the students' and parents' assumptions and react against those. Customer-service oriented education might seem inherently utilitarian, designed to prepare students in a very practical, focused way, for "real life," which usually translates into "getting a job." Whatever the failings of educational curricula, putting education in the service of employment is not something I want to advocate--or even to address here. The other implication is that "service" means slavish devotion to students. Providing multiple opportunities to make the grade. Extra extra credit. Perhaps even certain types of lectures and exams. As far as that goes, there are already huge initiatives to understand how students learn and to make efforts to design curricula, courses, assignments and even to restructure classrooms and redefine the teacher in order to maximize student learning. This is everywhere. Sometimes, it actually benefits the professor by removing the pressure for them to perform. They become mediators and mentors--not at all a bad role, unless they become superfluous, replaced by monitors and mediators who are less expensive and require less maintenance. There is some anxiety about this as tenure track disappears and adjuncts abound. So in terms of methodology, "student centered" might as well mean "customer-service oriented." The basic approach--taking the needs of those who are on the receiving end of the product or service into account--is the same. Do students see this as customer service? Not necessarily. Will they make unreasonable demands in the name of customer service? Absolutely.
I think that in terms of pedagogy, a customer-service orientation might mean focusing on the journey or process rather than the product. In an age of measurable objectives, we focus on testing, testing, testing... But those who train, or teach classes to blue-collar professions realize that not everyone tests well, and that sometimes the artificiality of a test is not the best indicator of skill, knowledge, or mastery. There are ways to evaluate during the process of learning. In a training environment, where there are no tests, and yet where we have to try to deliver courses that help people learn, we need to develop exercises that allow people to try out what they have learned in an environment where they can ask questions and receive feedback and instruction. Some people come and do not want to learn, and since it is their time, I can't really do too much about that lack of motivation. If they sit through my class, it goes on their transcript, and they might receive a higher yearly evaluation because of it. I can't help that situation. I'm not going to report to the boss that they were shopping for shoes for the entire 6 hours. But when they return to their desks, unless they already had the skills I taught, they will not have those skills at their disposal in their daily life. Because there is little real-world consequence, except perhaps if a doctor sleeps during Biology, education requires tests.
When I think about the process, though, I think about what leads up to the grades. Where are the opportunities for professors to monitor the learning process to see what is happening with a student before the test or paper due date? There are precious few in the models with which I am familiar, and all are student-intitiated. The reason they are few and student-initiated is that 1) the professor doesn't necessarily have the time or tools to get to know the student(s), and 2) there is an underlying assumption that forcing someone to ask for help has something to do with growing up. On a level, it does. But being open and available is important as well, and paving the way for someone to ask for help.
Let me describe two situations. One semseter when I was teaching Freshman composition, I had a student who came to class every day. She was very quiet, but listened attentively. She participated in daily activities. However, she never submitted a paper. I might have mentioned that to her casually in class once or twice, and she nodded. So she knew that she was behind, and hadn't turned in the work. Clearly, the burden was on her shoulders. It was easy to shrug it off--that meant one less paper to grade, however much I pitied her.
Consider another situation--a rigidly enforced departmental policy on word count. The students are warned that if their papers do not meet that word count--even if they are lacking only 2 words--the paper will not be graded. In the case of the final paper, it will not be read, though earlier papers--the finished, failed product--will receive feedback. Having already failed, how many of us will want the feedback? Even when I teach, if I feel that I have failed to deliver a class to my ability or my standards, I do not go looking for student feedback to tell me what I've done wrong. I already have a sense of my own inadequacy, thank you very much. So do students learn from that level of failure? We are told that if they don't fail, success will not be meaningful. But what is a meaningful failure? How does a teacher make failure meaningful? I'm not sure. But I don't think being beaten down and then invited in for more beating is going to do it. But when grading is as onorous as it is, and the students don't seem to care about our rules or our standards, it is easy to let the cynacism win. Let's face it, too--not all students are really interested in learning or playing the game. Motivations for being in school are much more complex than motivations for working. Working has a tangible result--a paycheck--even if it produces nothing else for the individual.
In a customer-serving department, we measure contact hours--how many hours we spend teaching multiplied by how many students we teach. It is important to have people value what we are doing, and they come to value our classes becuase they can see the progress they are making. So we try to facilitate that progress. They tell other people. We maintain our contact hours or increase them. We do operate on supply and demand, but so do academic departments. Courses that no one takes are not offered frequently, if at all. In the offices, advisors are interested in retaining majors--those numbers are good, too. But advisors are staff, and they are customer-serving positions. Faculty are different. Who cares if a faculty member pisses off a student? No one. Who cares if a staff member does? Everyone, including the faculty who happen to be involved with that student. Faculty are definitely a protected class, though I know that this varies, and not all faculty strive to piss off or offend students--though there are some who definitely do. They offend in order to make a point--I heard it from the Dean of Faculties recently, as he defended faculty methods to a group of staff members. But that's methodological. What about individual students?
Being in a staff position, or a customer-serving position, means that every time you are in contact with others, you are trying to facilitate matters to make certain that the customer feels good about the result. This has to do with equity as well as attitude. Most people who come to our department for training understand who we are and what our product is. They don't have to personally pay, so perhaps some of it is gratitiude for the opportunity (or the ability to escape work, though not all WANT to escape work), but they understand that we have guidelines to follow, and by and large, they respect those guidelines. There are certainly exceptions.
So when you want to actually maintain a relationship with your customers, you do things differently. Students are disposable, and they are a renewable resource. Different ones keep coming back, so there is no fear that faculty will become obsolete becaus students will choose not to come to classes. If your purpose is to fill someone with your subject or shape them in your own image, you don't actually have to care about how the process goes--especially if you're not held accountable. Where I am now, if someone is coming up to the time limit of a program, I can't just let them go and shrug. Of course I could. It is completely on their shoulders whether they finish a program or not. But what does it do to our contact hours if I let someone slip through the cracks? It's only one person. And the people that they don't tell about our wonderful programs and customer service. I'm working for word of mouth here. So I email. And I ask if they need any help or have any questions. And while some still don't answer, others will tell me what's going on. Some--working adults, older than me--confess that they were afraid to speak up. These are not children who need to be taught a lesson about growing up. These are people who think they know the constraints of our program, and don't want to impose. And I'm not nearly as intimidating as some professors I've had. And not nearly as scary as some grad students I've known. And Freshmen--let's face it--are 18. And have radically different personalities. They are people. And sometimes, they can't cope. Other times, they're just jerks. But you know? You can give them the benefit of the doubt, too. I have to. And customer service techniques teach you how to manage the jerks, too. Just watch the next time you're a jerk--they try to manipulate you with the same techniques I've learned. It's all rhetoric.
But the curious thing is that when you start considering the process, and how you can intervene and facilitate the success of a person or a situation, it becomes a habit, and requires much less effort. Granted, I'm tied to an office for 40 hours, so I have to send these emails, but really, it doesn't take very long. Thinking of a student as a customer simply in order to reorient you're thinking so that you make every reasonable effort to facilitate their success--THAT is what faculty customer service would look like. It's not the same as spoon feeding them. I'm not saying that you have to break the rules. Just start by asking, after you tell them what they need to do, "How can I help with this process?" Many times, they won't ask for anything. But I think, with students, many times we try to avoid contact hours rather than seeking them out. It's part of the institution.
**I forgot to mention that at the root of faculty resistance to customer service is that "service" sounds menial. Ego and the relative importance of faculty to the university are definitely factors.
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