Brave New Teaching Worlds

Every so often, I'm struck by how much the world has changed since I started teaching--and I'm not talking about political change or generational change.  I'm really talking about technology, at least for today.

I'm teaching an independent study for a Business student who literally has run out of courses to take--so I offered to teach Introduction to Literature as an independent study.  Once a week, we meet in my office to discuss literature.  It's quite delightful, and in some ways, she's learning the material the way she would have had we been teacher and student in the days of Socrates.  Except that we have literature on paper.  Perhaps the more apt historical reference is the way that students learned (and probably still learn) in the hallowed halls of Oxford and Cambridge.

Yesterday she wasn't as prepared to talk about Alice Walker's "Everyday Use," so we switched gears.  We looked at poems, and we spent time with Gwendolyn Brooks.  When we read "We Real Cool," I had a memory of Gwendolyn Brooks reading the piece, and I thought, let me see if I can find this.

We meet in my office, which has 2 computer screens, so I found a clip which included Brooks discussing the poem and arranged the screens so we could both watch.  It was a still photo, which in a way was great because we could focus on her voice.  She reads the poem so differently than I do--which lead to a great discussion of how the words are arranged on the page.

Later, I thought about the miracle of the Internet.  Once, if I wanted my students to hear Gwendolyn Brooks read a poem, I'd have needed to plan ahead:  I'd need to find the recording, and I'd need to make arrangements to play the recording.  In fact, I stockpiled materials so that I wouldn't have to think ahead.  Yesterday it took about 30 seconds from the idea of Brooks reading the poem to her voice coming to us through the speakers.

I do understand all the ways that technology can detract from the learning experience:  the constant distractions, the materials that seem like good sources for a research paper but aren't, the technology failures which disrupt our teaching plans.  But what an astonishing world we've created in just a few decades.

I came home to complete my online classes, another miracle afforded by the technology that's emerged in the past three decades.  When I started teaching in the fall of 1988, I turned in my grades by using pen and paper (or pencils for a scantron sheet).  Last night, it was all electronic--which means I plan ahead, in case my internet connection isn't working that particular day.  I turned in grades for students whom I have never met in person, but we have been communicating by way of satellites and computer connectivity.  A brave new world indeed!

Gratitude Amidst the Detritus

The Great Flooring Project is coming along nicely--that said, we are far from done.  The hardwood flooring is completely installed in the two bedrooms that comprise half the house.  Next up, the sanding, staining, and sealing.

Then we move everything to the other half of the house and the flooring folks take care of the half that we're living in right now.

We are lucky in so many ways.  We have a cottage in the back where we have stored extra stuff that we won't need during this process:  the guest room bed, the cedar chest, the bookcases, the books, the kitchen stuff that we don't use each day.  We have money for the project--of course, we got the money because of hurricane damage, and we have to make these improvements because of the damage, and I do wonder if this price is worth it.  But I am aware of people who have damage who haven't gotten any financial help in dealing with the mess.

Each morning I listen to the news of terrible fires out west, and I'm aware of my luck.  Our natural disaster could have been so much worse--and of course, the fear is that the next natural disaster might be the one that does us in.  But we go forward through the fear.

We are living in a space that's smaller than many New York City apartments--or than the space that many assisted living facilities offer.   In some ways, it's plenty of space.  In other ways, it's still strange to have everything just steps away, to be living in one big room.

I've also been listening to the NPR series on housing in America.  It won't come as news to many people that we don't have enough housing in much of the country:  not for poor people, not for the middle class, and increasingly, even rich folks find the choices sparse.  We are lucky to have a house that needs our care.

But we are in the life of the house where I just marvel at the amount of care it needs right now:  the pool is a mess, the weeds are about to take over the whole yard, not just the river rock areas where it shouldn't have intruded in the first place, and the inside of the house is an incredible collection of dusts from all sorts of detritus.

Still, let me keep myself grounded by reminding myself that we are lucky to have this house that needs us so much.  Let me remind myself of how many people will never be lucky enough to have a house that needs them.  Let me take a minute to offer a prayer for us all.

Hiroshima Anniversary

On this day in 1945, the world was about to change in dramatic ways that we likely still don't fully comprehend. On this day in 1945, the first nuclear bomb was used in war.

The effects of that bomb obliterated much of Hiroshima--and vaporized some of it. There were reports of people fused into pavement and glass--or just vanished, with a trace remaining at the pavement. The reports of the survivors who walked miles in search of help or water are grim. And many of those survivors would die of the effects of radiation in the coming years.

On this day, and on August 9, in 1945, nuclear weapons were used in war, and so far, we haven't used them in war again. We have been lucky that nuclear weapons are so complicated and pose such a health risk in terms of radiation that terrorists have stayed away from them.

Let us do all that we have in our power to do to make sure that these weapons are not used again.

We may not feel like we have much power to have any impact on nuclear treaties. Until recently, we might not have worried about it. Now, like many people, I find myself worrying about treaties that our president might decide to abandon.  Happily a treaty is something that a president can't decide to abandon on a whim once it's been ratified by Congress.

Today is a good day to meditate on power and how we seek to harness it and how we use power once we have it. Can we also celebrate the transfiguring possibility of power? After all, not all uses of power lead to destructive explosions. Some times, we find redemption.  Sometimes wars end.

On this anniversary of the Hiroshima blast, I am aware of the very temporary nature of our lives and our artifacts. One fine morning we can be eating breakfast one minute, or walking to work, and then, in one blast, in just a few seconds, we're fused into the concrete. It's a sobering thought, and a good one to have, to move our hearts to gratitude for a day where we're not facing a thermonuclear blast, where we don't have to deal with an electromagnetic pulse, where our loved ones are still here, on this side of the earth.

Blessing of the School Staff

Many churches now have some sort of back to school ritual; will your church be blessing backpacks? We will do that next week, the Sunday before classes start.

Today we will bless teachers, administrators, and staff. From what I can tell, many churches now have a backpack blessing service or part of a service. Some churches bless backpacks of supplies that they're donating to less fortunate children, while others bless the backpacks of children going back to school. Some bless the children, not the backpack.

Our church blesses children and backpacks, which I've always thought was great. We also bless teachers, usually on the Sunday before we bless the children, since teachers return to school first. Lately, we've been including staff--anyone who works with a school in any capacity is welcome to come to the altar for a blessing.

As an administrator, I go up for the blessing. At first, back when I was doing more teaching, I hesitated to go up with the other teachers, but my pastor was clear: all teachers, from pre-K to college. So, up I went, even though I thought I had the easier job.

Now I'm an administrator, and some weeks I feel I have the easier job. Other weeks, I feel like teachers have the easier job, college teachers at least.  As I've been teaching online, I also ponder which delivery system is easier on me, the teacher.  It depends.  The more I work in school settings, the more I realize that we all have a role to play, and we each have weeks where the brunt of the burden falls on us. 

I'm glad that our approach has expanded to include all teachers and all staff--anyone who will be working with students throughout the year.

So yes, I will be happy to be blessed today. Anoint my hands with oil! My hands metaphorically touch many other lives in a standard work week, both students and faculty and my fellow administrators.

Let me be blessed to be a blessing!

Dispatch from the Drywall Dust

My thoughts this morning may be more scattered than usual.  But I've often had that thought and gotten a good post of collected observations anyway.  Let me begin:

--This week at work, I saw the first application from a student with a birth date in this century.  I'm not sure why it felt so momentous to see that birth year of 2000.  But it did.  Hers was likely not the very first application with a 21st century birthdate to cross my desk, but it's the first time I took a look at that birth year and thought, whoa.

--In other workplace observations, yesterday I had a primal start moment when a student walked out of the bathroom with a live snake around her neck--which led me to words I never imagined uttering in my professional life:  "I don't mean to complain, but I have a problem with a student with a snake around her neck outside of the classroom."  Happily, the Vet Tech faculty agreed with me.  Our Vet Tech students often forget that not everyone has warm and fuzzy feelings about their pets that they bring to class--especially the pets that aren't warm and fuzzy.

--I think of this week as being a slow writing week, but I did write a brand new poem, along with some revisions, and I did send work out to journals.

--This is my first blog post as I sit in the dark with my sleeping spouse just a few feet away.  I'm working on the new laptop, not the old laptop with a big monitor plugged in.  This morning, the light doesn't seem to be keeping my spouse awake.  Hurrah!

--You may ask why I don't just switch to the new laptop permanently?  I can't get the Fitbit app to download onto this one.

--Our house is a complete and total mess.  I tried to wipe drywall dust off of the desk before I turned on the laptop so that the laptop wouldn't suck it in, but who knows how successful I was, dusting in the ambient light.  It seems a metaphor for something.

--My spouse had a chat with the drywall guy.  His family immigrated from Vietnam in 1971, and his wife's family is from Afghanistan.  Take a moment and let that sink in--how on earth did these two people manage to find each other?

(Update:  it wasn't the drywall guy.  It was a fellow adjunct)

--It's not a typical South Florida immigration story either.  Until recently, this area hasn't had as many immigrants from Asia or from the Middle East.

--Our house is a mess, but we're making progress on some longterm projects, so I'm not as aggravated as I might have been otherwise.  The Great Flooring Project is progressing nicely, and we're getting places in the walls and ceiling sealed up with new drywall, so that our living space and kitchen becomes one large space.  It gives us lots of options, especially since we got rid of the dining room table and chairs.

--The pool has been taking on a greenish hue.  I poured algaecide into it last night and let the pump run all night.  In poolcare, as in life, it's so hard to maintain a balance!

--I ended the day by sitting on the porch, listening to my spouse play the violin, and reading Peter Brannen's The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth's Past Mass Extinctions.  I read the end of the book first, the chapter which discusses whether or not we really are in the middle or early days of the 6th great extinction.  It was not lost on me that I'm reading about sea level rise on the front porch where I've gone to escape the chaos of the home reconstruction after one of the more devastating hurricane seasons in recent memory.

Tasks in a Time of Flooring Change

I expected the Great Flooring Project to be disruptive in many ways, and it has been.  It's temporary, and we've controlled some of the parameters, so this aftermath of Hurricane Irma feels a bit less awful than the hurricane itself, but it may end up being just as disruptive.

Today I sit here waiting for contractors; Monday I took a day of PTO to get everything moved out of the half of the house that gets new flooring first.  We are now living in the half of the house that has no walls.

I didn't realize how much of my morning routine needs light until I was trying to attend to basic tasks while my spouse was trying to sleep just feet away.  I could make the coffee using just the ambient light.  I can find the clothes I need in the laundry basket by sense of touch.  I used to tidy up by washing dishes before I left in the morning, but that's impossible since most mornings, I'm leaving in the 6 a.m. darkness.

Writing is turning out to be more difficult.  My computer system (old laptop, large monitor) at the foot of the bed sends out enough light to disturb my spouse.  I can't easily write by hand in the dark.  I've still not resolved this issue.  Write regardless?  Decide that I can't really do writing tasks in the early morning hours the way that I used to do until this phase of the Great Flooring Project is over?

Happily, I think this state of affairs will change in a week or two.  I am aware that I might find myself in a new set of circumstances that won't make writing any easier.  I'll look for ways to insert bits of writing into different parts of my day.  Maybe I'll see some options I haven't seen before.

The good news is that the sub flooring looks to be in fairly good condition.  That suggests to me that the joists aren't going to rot out from under us.  My spouse would want me to point out that the joists are made of Dade County pine, a very tough wood.  It will likely not rot even when the seas rise up and submerge it--or I should say, it will be the last wood to rot on the bed of the new sea floor.

The Great Flooring Project Begins

We expect the Great Flooring Project to start today.  We have moved everything out of the east part of the house, either to the cottage or to the west part of the house.  Our bed is where the dining room table used to be.  I am writing while my spouse is sleeping. 

I don't have a sense of the timeline of this project.  The next part is slightly more complicated because we're taking out our kitchen and doing a kitchen remodel.

The kitchen was supposed to be temporary.  We put it in so that the house would pass inspection/appraisal for sale, so we put in the bare minimum:  a cabinet and a long countertop for the sink and a tall pantry.  We had linoleum squares for the floor that we installed.  The former owner had a fridge and dishwasher.  It passed inspection and we got the appraisal needed, and we've been waiting for the right time to rip it out and do the remodel.

Now is that time.

Most of our whole house will have hardwood floors to match the floors that are in the living room and dining room.  The bathrooms and laundry room will keep the tile floors they have now.

These next few weeks will be an interesting experiment in minimalist living.  How little space do we really need?  It would be easier, perhaps, if my spouse and I kept the same sleeping schedule.  My writing here has made my spouse a bit restless.  I don't sleep well until he turns off the TV at night.

I'm not sure what happens with the next phase of the project, where we're down to 2 bedrooms separated by the part of the house that's under construction.  Will we do all of our living out of the master bedroom?

I will do my best to be patient.  It will be good to get this project finished.