Over the course of this semester, I have
tried to focus on making sure my students were engaged with the material. I have a passion for history that I feel
compliments my passion for communication studies. I found I very much enjoy teaching and I am
seriously considering it as a career option.
However, in this semester, I encountered a very unique set of obstacles
outside of the classroom. I feel my
experience, along with the successes and failures I had as the semester came to
a close might help others in the future.
I am by nature a performer, an entertainer, and so what follows may be
strange for a practical class on pedagogy.
I feel the narrative will allow others the opportunity to explore the
experience and the sensation, and hopefully connect with it in such a way as to
know they are not alone. Also, that they
might find some tool they can use or something to avoid when dealing with the
stress that can come with teaching while managing a life in crisis.
For 27 years my permanent address never
changed. My mother began renting the
house I grew up in when I was six years old.
She lived there until 2005 when I took over the lease. It was nice having that kind of continuity. The house wasn’t ours, but it was cheap to
rent, and we considered it home. Just
down the road, the was a house with a huge oak tree I climbed with friends as a
child. It was in the yard of an older
woman who lived alone, and she loved to watch the neighborhood kids swing from
the branches. That tree, and that house,
we immovable objects in my life. They were anchors that let me know where I
was. They let me know I was home. On the Friday before Halloween in 2015, as I
drove to school in the morning, there were men in the yard of the house where
that tree still stood. I noticed them
cutting limbs and assumed they were trimming it for the fall. When I came home, and drove past, the tree
was half gone and laying in a pile in the yard.
It was a strange end to a hard day.
I enjoy teaching. From the first moment I stepped in front of the class, to the last day of instructing my COMM 1010 students, there was never a day I felt bad when teaching. It was a place to feel safe and like I was doing something important, even when everything else in my life was going off the rails. My central focus was always trying to ensure the class was engaged with the material. I wanted to connect with them and ensure they were really learning. I wanted class to be a place where they felt they were involved and not simply being talked at. I wanted to correct the mistakes I felt had been made by teachers in my past and really pay attention to what my classes needed. But from the day of that first cut into the tree I loved to climb as a kid, everything started to fall apart one piece at a time.
I was listening to Dr. Allison speak about the paradigm shift in performance studies. I love the class, and was listening to see if there was anything I could question or that I needed to expand on for my own future work. I sat around the table with other students and Dr. Anderson-Lain who was there observing the class. There was candy on the table, as Halloween was only a day away, and so I popped a Jolly Rancher in my mouth to enjoy as I pondered. I have always bitten into Jolly Ranchers, I loved the feel of the candy falling apart and dissolving in my mouth. This time however, I had made a terrible mistake. As my teeth came apart, my face suddenly filled with electricity. The pain made the rest of what happened blur together. At some point though I stood, left the classroom, and walked across the street to the CVS, trying not to scream or cry. I bought some temporary fix for the crown that had popped off my tooth. I placed it back on, later I would discover I put in on backwards, but it made the pain dull a bit. I just couldn’t close my mouth. This problem would persist for over a week.
I enjoy teaching. From the first moment I stepped in front of the class, to the last day of instructing my COMM 1010 students, there was never a day I felt bad when teaching. It was a place to feel safe and like I was doing something important, even when everything else in my life was going off the rails. My central focus was always trying to ensure the class was engaged with the material. I wanted to connect with them and ensure they were really learning. I wanted class to be a place where they felt they were involved and not simply being talked at. I wanted to correct the mistakes I felt had been made by teachers in my past and really pay attention to what my classes needed. But from the day of that first cut into the tree I loved to climb as a kid, everything started to fall apart one piece at a time.
I was listening to Dr. Allison speak about the paradigm shift in performance studies. I love the class, and was listening to see if there was anything I could question or that I needed to expand on for my own future work. I sat around the table with other students and Dr. Anderson-Lain who was there observing the class. There was candy on the table, as Halloween was only a day away, and so I popped a Jolly Rancher in my mouth to enjoy as I pondered. I have always bitten into Jolly Ranchers, I loved the feel of the candy falling apart and dissolving in my mouth. This time however, I had made a terrible mistake. As my teeth came apart, my face suddenly filled with electricity. The pain made the rest of what happened blur together. At some point though I stood, left the classroom, and walked across the street to the CVS, trying not to scream or cry. I bought some temporary fix for the crown that had popped off my tooth. I placed it back on, later I would discover I put in on backwards, but it made the pain dull a bit. I just couldn’t close my mouth. This problem would persist for over a week.
After Halloween I was disconnected in
class. I was underprepared and I always
felt I was talking more than I should. I
could see my students were tired and uninvolved. I saw their detachment, and I felt awful. I told jokes and tried to find moments when I
could bring them back to the material and the moment we were sharing. Often I would find myself relying on a method
I am pretty good at, just waiting for others to answer a question I ask, occasionally
letting them know I will stand there for as long as it takes and rephrasing the
question. It was as if they could sense
I was detached though. I felt at times
the class could see I was falling apart and that I was failing as a
teacher. In my mind they knew I was
focused on everything but school and not giving them my full attention, so I
tried to fake it. I tried to reassure
them with words and by acting a teacherly in class as possible, but based on
their response, I could tell they weren’t buying it. And so I began to ask direct questions to individual
students and use activities more. I
tried to give them more of an opportunity to speak and exchange ideas. A part of me feels they still knew I was off,
that something was wrong, and they were confused at the change in my demeanor. The classes slowly became engaged again, but
more people started to not show up. And
those that did took longer to get into the rhythm of participation. And toward the end, I felt I was putting less
effort in as the end of the semester became a game of catch up for me and my
grad school workload. I was still trying
to hold together the tatters of my personal life, and everyday I was driving
past the remains of one of my fondest childhood memories. Like that once noble Oak with its big strong
branches, I was in pieces and my students could see it. They knew they wouldn’t be standing on my shoulders
or hanging from my branches anytime soon, and so they simply disengaged. I felt like a failure.
The words, ”I don’t think I love you anymore, and I haven’t for awhile…”, still ring in my ears. The house that has been my home for almost three decades is partially empty and I lay in my bed, reading while Netflix drones in the background. I am alone for the first time in eight years. No girlfriend, no dogs, and no roommates. I look at the stack of papers I have to grade and glance at the assignments of my own I am falling behind on. I am overwhelmed and sad. I feel hollow inside. I decide I need food, but my tooth is held in place by a chalky crumbling substance that will break if too much pressure is applied. I shuffle out my front door and get into the car I am borrowing from now my former girlfriend’s father. Mine sits broken and useless in the driveway next to it. I sigh as I remember another thing I have to do before I can move my things to my temporary home in Fort Worth. The car squeaks as the brakes engage at the stop sign at the end of my street. I begin to slow near the stump of the tree I climbed as a kid, and I start to cry. This continues as I drive to the store. I sit in the car as NPR reminds me of the latest catastrophes around the globe. I take no solace in the fact that my problems are small. My life as I have known it is over, I must now reinvent myself as something new. I must do this alone. I have no choice but to do the things that will change me forever. I buy soup and beer and head home, driving past the wooden monument of loss recently placed along my daily commute, and step back into the monotony of trying to hold what remains in my life together. I want sleep, I want relief, I want someone to hold me.
The last class period of the semester in my sections of 1010 were amazing. My students reminded me in two days why I loved teaching. Things had started to get better just before the Thanksgiving break. But now I felt I was back where I truly belonged. Each class period, I talk a little less. Each class period more people interact not just with me, but with their peers. I am behind on grading, I am behind on my own work, I am still feeling sad. The last 200 minutes I share with my student feels productive and I feel I have purpose again. I find myself paying close attention to people on phones, to students who stare blankly or wrinkle their brow in confusion. This prompts me to switch approaches each time there is a pause in the class. Sometimes I ask questions, sometimes I write notes on the board, sometimes I show videos. Each class feels good. It feels like home. On the last day I ask the students how they feel the semester went, if they had any notes. They compliment me, but a few give really good feedback about things I could improve. I store the knowledge away, an leave the last class feeling that I accomplished something. Only their grades and future use of the concepts we went over will truly tell the story as to weather or not I was successful. But I feel like I helped some students. I feel like I made a difference. Like the time I pulled a trick conversation about race back from the edge of being dangerously inappropriate with a story from my childhood. I told them about my Mississippi family, and how the way they talked about race made it hard for me to make friends when I first came to Texas because of the language I was taught to use to think about people. Then, there was the day a student shared a very personal story about an online dating experience and how it had affected their ability to trust people they meet online. I think of these things as I walk back to the GAB where my desk sits in the middle of an amazing group of scholars, people that all helped me get through the roughest part of the semester, people that teach me something new everyday. As I walk, I pass a tree that is tall and old, and I think about climbing it. In my mind, for just a moment, I am high up in the branches with the sun worming my face and my curly hair bouncing with each sway of the branches. I smile as I walk past the tree, and I feel like I’m going home.
The words, ”I don’t think I love you anymore, and I haven’t for awhile…”, still ring in my ears. The house that has been my home for almost three decades is partially empty and I lay in my bed, reading while Netflix drones in the background. I am alone for the first time in eight years. No girlfriend, no dogs, and no roommates. I look at the stack of papers I have to grade and glance at the assignments of my own I am falling behind on. I am overwhelmed and sad. I feel hollow inside. I decide I need food, but my tooth is held in place by a chalky crumbling substance that will break if too much pressure is applied. I shuffle out my front door and get into the car I am borrowing from now my former girlfriend’s father. Mine sits broken and useless in the driveway next to it. I sigh as I remember another thing I have to do before I can move my things to my temporary home in Fort Worth. The car squeaks as the brakes engage at the stop sign at the end of my street. I begin to slow near the stump of the tree I climbed as a kid, and I start to cry. This continues as I drive to the store. I sit in the car as NPR reminds me of the latest catastrophes around the globe. I take no solace in the fact that my problems are small. My life as I have known it is over, I must now reinvent myself as something new. I must do this alone. I have no choice but to do the things that will change me forever. I buy soup and beer and head home, driving past the wooden monument of loss recently placed along my daily commute, and step back into the monotony of trying to hold what remains in my life together. I want sleep, I want relief, I want someone to hold me.
The last class period of the semester in my sections of 1010 were amazing. My students reminded me in two days why I loved teaching. Things had started to get better just before the Thanksgiving break. But now I felt I was back where I truly belonged. Each class period, I talk a little less. Each class period more people interact not just with me, but with their peers. I am behind on grading, I am behind on my own work, I am still feeling sad. The last 200 minutes I share with my student feels productive and I feel I have purpose again. I find myself paying close attention to people on phones, to students who stare blankly or wrinkle their brow in confusion. This prompts me to switch approaches each time there is a pause in the class. Sometimes I ask questions, sometimes I write notes on the board, sometimes I show videos. Each class feels good. It feels like home. On the last day I ask the students how they feel the semester went, if they had any notes. They compliment me, but a few give really good feedback about things I could improve. I store the knowledge away, an leave the last class feeling that I accomplished something. Only their grades and future use of the concepts we went over will truly tell the story as to weather or not I was successful. But I feel like I helped some students. I feel like I made a difference. Like the time I pulled a trick conversation about race back from the edge of being dangerously inappropriate with a story from my childhood. I told them about my Mississippi family, and how the way they talked about race made it hard for me to make friends when I first came to Texas because of the language I was taught to use to think about people. Then, there was the day a student shared a very personal story about an online dating experience and how it had affected their ability to trust people they meet online. I think of these things as I walk back to the GAB where my desk sits in the middle of an amazing group of scholars, people that all helped me get through the roughest part of the semester, people that teach me something new everyday. As I walk, I pass a tree that is tall and old, and I think about climbing it. In my mind, for just a moment, I am high up in the branches with the sun worming my face and my curly hair bouncing with each sway of the branches. I smile as I walk past the tree, and I feel like I’m going home.
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