Category: Fragments

a draft

As part of the second phase of my Undisciplined book project, I’m writing about the haunting question, Am I a Teacher? Reviewing my draft so far, I’m struck by these lines:

…teaching became unbearable as I realized that it was bad for me. It was negatively affecting my health, putting too much strain on my relationships, and crushing my creative spirit.

Sara Puotinen

Towards the end of teaching, around the spring of 2011, I was struggling physically and emotionally. Almost six years of living in an unhealthy environment where I was made to feel less worthy and encouraged to think too much and too critically, and to prioritize, above everything else, my academic work, had weakened me physically and emotionally. I managed to teach for one more semester, but even though I really enjoyed my last two classes, I was so drained by being at the University of Minnesota, that when I finished that December, I never returned. I had arranged to be a visiting scholar in the department, but I could not force myself to go back on campus. It was too painful. The first time I recall actually returning was several years later with my family. After riding on the new green line train that went straight to the U of Minnesota, we decided to walk around the campus. It was very hard for me to do. I was surprised by how much it felt similar to the waves of grief for my dead mother that would overwhelm me on her birthday, mother’s day, or the day that she died. 

I ran away from the academy. Sometimes I wonder if that was the most responsible or smartest thing to do. I’m not sure. What I do know is that it felt necessary. I could not make myself return. I had to run away.

In the years since leaving the academy, the act of running has taken on a different meaning. I started running in June of 2011, the summer before my final semester of teaching. Slowly I trained enough to run in a 5k race. Then I kept training. I’ve been running for almost six years now.

I was reminded of this second meaning of running last night when my husband found an old Instagram photo of me, hamming it up right before a 5k race (my second 5k ever) in July of 2012. I look happy and goofy and strong. Would this picture have been possible if I hadn’t ran away from the academy in 2011?

Hamming it up… @undisciplined at #torchlight5k.

A photo posted by Scott Anderson (@room34) on Jul 18, 2012 at 4:21pm PDT

At the end of my last post, I mentioned that another name for a teaching portfolio is “Evidence of Teaching Excellence.” This morning I had an idea for how to “play” with this title.

Not Evidence of Teaching Excellence but…

Evidence of Teaching…

• Resistance
• Trouble
• Uncertainty
• Burn-out
• Discomfort/Anxiety
• Frustration
• Worth/Merit/Respect
• Generosity
• Creativity
• Care
• Persistence
• Vulnerability

I might work to streamline this list a bit. These are things that I taught to students, but also that I experienced (in good, bad, and dangerous ways) while teaching. For example, evidence of teaching resistance involves how I taught resistance to unjust/problematic theories, ideologies, practices in the classroom, but also how I was resistant to ways of teaching (I disliked writing on the board, giving lectures, or doing a lot of physical activities) and to claiming the role of all-knowing (or even lots-of-knowing) Expert. And it involves how I experienced resistance from students to what and how I was teaching. I imagine my “evidence of teaching resistance” to be a reflection of some of my strengths as a teacher, but also of my weaknesses.

I’m reading Leanne Shapton’s Swimming Studies. It’s great. There’s a lot I’d like to write about how inspiring and enjoyable it is to read, but I’ll save that for once I’ve finished the entire book. For now, I’ll just post about Shapton’s brief discussion of default images:

My grandfather was a bomber pilot in the Second World War. Though he lived into his late eighties, he’s frozen in my mind as the young man in a photo, wearing a flight suit and goggles, grinning next to a B-25 Mitchell. The image that comes to mind when I think of my mother is a snapshot of her, taken around 1983, sitting on her bed dressed in work clothes: silk shirt, trousers, long necklace, smiling. If I think of my dad, he’s in our dining room, clapping and singing along to “The Gambler” by Kenny Rogers. The default image I have of myself is a photo: me, ten, standing next to the ladder at Gawthra Park pool in a blue bathing suit, knees clenched, trying to catch my breath.

Shapton, 5-6.

What’s your default image? Here’s one of mine:

A photo of me, taken by my dad (I think?) when I’m 8 at Clyde Campbell Elementary School near Hickory, North Carolina. I’d just taken a photo with my co-ed soccer team.  I love my pose, with my belly straining, just a little, against my pale blue team shirt. I look so strong and confident and spirited.