In honor of my fellow adjuncts who are
returning to work over the next several weeks, I humbly offer this small
diversion…
You are not the kind of guy who would be at a
place like this during the last week of summer break. But here you are, and you cannot say the
terrain is entirely unfamiliar, although the past three months have made the
details fuzzy.
The summer has already turned on that
imperceptible pivot where Memorial Day weekend changes into the few short days
before classes begin. You know this
moment has come and gone, but you are not yet willing to concede that you have
crossed the line behind which all is the pleasure of a long vacation and beyond
which is the anticipatory palsy of knowing you must soon face classrooms full
of slack-jawed freshmen. Somewhere back
there you could have cut your losses, but you rode past that moment when you
signed your contract for the fall semester.
You are seated at a small desk in a big room
filled with your colleagues. The
occasion is the semiannual faculty meeting at Snowflake College. You glance idly at your fellow faculty as
they saunter in. Most of them are locals
who live in Treetop. You can easily
identify the profs who commute from out of town. They’re the ones who aren’t dressed like
mannequins in an REI store.
The seats around you fill up quickly. You nod to Jan as she takes the desk in front
of you. Phil, the business professor,
takes the seat to your immediate right. You
like Phil; he’s a decent sort. Duckie
grabs the seat to your left. Duckie is
an affable fellow, particularly popular with the young female students despite
his diminutive stature and uncanny resemblance to Jon Cryer. He also has the grating habit of punctuating
every third sentence or so with a rapid fire, staccato chuckle. You alone seem to have noticed this tic. You have no particular reason for disliking
him that you can put your finger on, but you do anyway. Despite this, you make small talk as you wait
for things to start.
Like a conductor tapping her baton on a
lectern, Dean Kimpossible clears her throat.
Everyone looks up. The meeting
begins.
Kimpossible is a stout, fortyish blonde who in
unguarded moments wears a hard, vaguely pissed off expression. In conversation, she affects a calculatedly
empathetic air. You have deduced from
her various public pronouncements that her philosophy is mainly a pastiche of
bumper sticker aphorisms such as “Not all who wander are lost,” grafted onto odd
bits gleaned from Esalen, est, and Gestalt therapy, by way of 1970s Marin
County.
Kimpossible holds a doctorate in Wiccan mythology
from an online degree mill, of which she is inordinately proud. She has been the campus dean for the past four
years, but likes to burnish her street cred by teaching at least one section a
semester. She is well-liked by most of
your peers. Your stomach churns at the
very sight of her. You are normally
tolerant of flakes, but a flake with an agenda scares the living hell out of
you. You fidget uncomfortably in your
cramped plastic chair.
“Hello, and welcome to our staff
meeting.”
Kimpossible clasps her hands before her and
tilts her head slightly to one side.
“Please forgive me if I’m not one hundred percent tonight. I’ve experienced a family crisis over the
past couple of weeks. My beloved
Schnauzer, Fritz, suffered an intestinal blockage. He nearly died. Twice!
But I called upon the Earth Goddess to guide the veterinarian’s hands
and heal Fritz, and She answered me by making Fritz whole again and in harmony
with the cosmos.” Everyone around you
murmurs sympathetically. Kimpossible acknowledges
their approbation by nodding slowly and softly saying, “Thank you, thank you.”
You settle in resignedly as Kimpossible
covers the same stale topics you have heard at numerous staff meetings. You surreptitiously check your watch every
few minutes. You shift and shift again
in your seat, trying in vain to get comfortable. The hard plastic of the chair gradually numbs
your posterior. You regret having had that
second bowl of black bean vegetarian chili at the pre-meeting potluck.
As the dean chatters on, you desperately seek
a diversion. You stare transfixed at the
back of Jan’s head and the mass of long, stringy hair spilling over the back of
her peasant blouse. Jan teaches Vedic
meditation three times a week. This is a
very popular class at Snowflake. Clearly,
there are few experiences more gratifying than sitting crosslegged on your very
own mat with forty other people in a large circle, chanting “Om” in unison for
fifty minutes at a stretch while earning college credit.
Your path and Jan’s ordinarily do not cross. Regrettably, this has not always been the
case. Your Monday evening section last fall
had the misfortune of meeting in the same room as Jan’s afternoon class. You soon discovered that Jan, carried away by
the rapture of communing with the life force of the universe, invariably ran
over her scheduled class time leaving you and your students waiting in the
hallway.
You suffered in silence for a couple of weeks. You wanted to be a team player. You did not want to make
waves. You learned the custodial staff
was not nearly as magnanimous as you.
They complained to Kimpossible about having to set up desks in the room
after Jan’s class to accommodate yours.
You were disappointed but hardly surprised to
learn that, in the face of this dilemma, Kimpossible made a perfectly logical
decision: Rather than tell Jan to wrap things up on time, she moved your class
into a stifling broom closet of a room downstairs over your bitter
protests. Your students blamed you for
their discomfort. They swore they would
take Vedic meditation the following semester.
After what seems an eternity, Kimpossible
gets to something resembling a point: “Tonight, we’re going to discuss how we
evaluate our students and keep them engaged.
Remember, Snowflake College is like no other college and our students
are unique.”
You groan inwardly. You think, oh god, here it comes.
“First, I want to talk to you about the ways
we measure student progress. Sometimes
you just can’t rely on A’s and B’s alone to show students how much having them
in your class means to you.
“I’m also aware that a few of the less
enlightened among you are demoralizing students with C’s, D’s, and F’s when you
know that all of them did their best and many of them have always been ‘A’
students. This has to stop!
“Let me give you an example of positive
reinforcement that you can use in your classrooms. When Fritz was clinging to life in the pet hospital,
a technician came in to draw blood. He
tried, he really tried, but he just couldn’t get the needle into a vein.
“Fritz was howling in pain, and I could see
that the technician’s self esteem was affected by this. So I patted him on the arm and said, ‘That’s
okay. You did your best. That’s all that matters.’
“You should have seen his face! He brightened right up! He still couldn’t find a vein, but the important
thing is he gave it his best effort and he felt good about himself afterwards. We must make sure our students feel good about
themselves, too!
“Now, I’d like you to share your student
engagement strategies with the group.”
You sense an opportunity to shine. You raise your hand. Kimpossible frowns. “Yes, Unassuming?”
“Well, I like to assign small group work—“
Kimpossible sighs and cuts you off
impatiently. “We don’t have time for a
story, Unassuming. How about you,
Duckie?”
“In my classes, I give them small group
work. I find that keeps them
engaged. Because, you know, they need to
be engaged, right? Huh-huh-huh-huh-huh!”
“Oh my gosh!
You are so right, Duckie! No
wonder your students love you! How about
you, Jan, what do you think?”
“I really believe in kinesthetic learning,”
Jan says breathily. “Only by moving
around can students get in touch with their inner spirit and fully appreciate
the beauty that is the world.”
“True, so true, Jan!” Kimpossible pauses for
effect, then continues: “These are all great points.
“We have to adapt our teaching style to keep our
students’ attention. I’ve decided to
start with this fall’s Mavens & Intuitions series.” Mavens & Intuitions is Snowflake’s monthly
community speakers program. You have
attended several events in the past. You
found them interesting and informative. You
find that Kimpossible felt otherwise.
“I don’t like lectures!” Kimpossible
proclaims. “Lectures are boring! They’re only good for communicating useful
information efficiently. People should learn
stuff that’s fun! That’s why Mavens
& Intuitions this year will be about entertainment and doing things people
enjoy.
“In the same spirit, I expect all of you to
make your classes a truly enriching experience for our exceptional
students. Have a blessed semester!”
At last, the meeting is over.
You leave the building and practically sprint
for your car. You sink into the driver’s
seat and take a deep breath. The smell
of the surrounding pine forest envelops you. The thought of tonight’s meeting and the
prospect of teaching another collection of entitled brats sticks in your throat and
you almost gag. You will have to go
slowly. You will have to learn
everything all over again…
Then again, maybe you won’t.
© 2012 The Unassuming Scholar
