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Look. I really appreciate that you’re trying to be fair, but how about, instead of cajoling me, attempting to convince me that you’re right when you know you’re not, and reviewing my grade book like an accountant at tax time, you just tell me you want me to change the student’s grade though he has unequivocally not passed the course, and save us all some time and stress? I need to get back to blog reading essay grading. Cheers.
Yes, of course I have time to meet with you. Allow me to ferret out my grade sheets from last semester, put off the grading and planning I have to do, and continue to ignore my frigid coffee so we can discuss the issue of your D-, which has already been submitted and is now part of your permanent transcript, and therefore unalterable.
Ah, here it is…well, as you can see from the list of “possible points” versus “points earned”, there is quite a discrepancy.
Um, yeah. That means you didn’t do the work.
This assignment? You were absent.
Yeah, that one too.
Aaaaand that one.
And this 0 is for the quiz you forgot about when you came back from visiting your uncle in Las Vegas.
It was on the syllabus.
And I reminded everyone for several days beforehand. No, you weren’t in class. Did you email me to get your assignments? Hmmmm….I don’t see anything in my inbox.
Yes, it’s possible that I deleted it. Let’s look in my email trash. Uh-oh, it’s not here. Oh yes, of course- a computer glitch. Must be.
Thank you for that compliment. I’m sure you know how reaffirming it is for a teacher to hear that they were “always unprepared for the class” and “never gave any instructions”. Yes, my friend, that’s how I roll. I have an advanced degree and expect you to read my mind. I don’t require that you give me any work at all if you don’t feel like it, and never mind about coming to class. I can discern that you are a storehouse of knowledge when it comes to English grammar, so I’ll just scoot you up to a C and move you to the next level. Integrity? Bah- who needs it!? Let me just turn heaven and earth and make things aaaaaalllll better, k?
Now let me finish my coffee.
There’s this moment- if you’re lucky, a day or so, between worrying about last term and thinking about the new one- when you remember why you gave up that job in the public school, even though you might have had to take a pay cut. You recall how nice is is to be able to answer “Graduate Degree” on those customer satisfaction surveys, how nice it is to have letters that follow your name, even if it doesn’t correlate to more zeros on your check.
It’s walking down the glass-panelled, glossy-floored hall that smells like old books, and discreetly listening to the people in their offices as you stroll by. It’s hearing the names of places you rarely think about, mathematical equations you left behind irrevocably before the GRE, ancient obscure arguments about Descartes’ position on the soul.
Students brush past in their hoodies emblazoned with the University’s name, their hair messily tied back, Uggs or Birkenstocks or flip flops tapping, though it’s 40 degrees outside. Their backpacks seem to want to encumber them eternally, but you know it’s just ’till May.
It’s the empty break room, the coffee that was made a few hours ago, not even theoretically freshly roasted, and the powdered creamer someone’s spilled on the cabinet in a rush to get to their 10am lecture. You grab the second-to-last muffin and a flimsy cup of coffee and retreat to your office, where your colleagues are discussing relative clause usage and the inconsistencies of cultural time.
A student is waiting, and wants to know her score on the final. She’s one of the ones who really got it this semester, one of those for whom the lightbulb was perpetually shining.
Her eyes when you tell her her grade, her breathless “Thank You”.
Sipping your coffee. Starting it all again.
Guess what I’m doing instead of grading exams?? Watching stuff like this, for you, my blog readers. I know…the sacrifice is unimaginable. Enjoy. Procrastinate a little for my sake while you do.
My new teaching assignment (the one that had me move to the frozen north known as OHIO) has its ups and downs, but one of the definite ups for me has been the religious affiliation of the university where I teach. There’s a small, quiet chapel at the bottom of my building. I am there several times a day.
I’m not a fanatic, not a fundamentalist whacko that spouts rhetoric and plans for world domination (at least most of the time). But having a place so conducive to contemplation and silence is a gift, so, like the good person that I’m not, at random moments in the day you can find me hangin’ with the Mother of Good Counsel.
It’s down a dark-panelled hallway that smells like a candle recently blown out. As my office building is also home to some retired religious, it also has that odor specific to old men- somewhere between cooled tobacco, faded aftershave and wet wool. Mix it in with the dried flowers left at Mary’s statue and the ancient odor of people’s tears, sweat, and prayers, and you have it.
It’s like my morning java- I go first thing when I arrive, harried from the dressing-lunchmaking-rushing-out-the-door that is my morning, and leave my things just outside the chapel. I smooth my hair, leave my coffee, and walk through the stained glass doors.
There’s usually no one there. I cross to the nearest prayer bench and kneel.
And then there it is. I am alone- something I’m not, most of the time. I am silent- something I’m definitely not most of the time. I can hear my own breathing. I focus. I calm. I breathe a prayer into the dim light.
It’s a precious gift, this time, and I am thankful for it. I feel like I’ve discovered a place out of time and space where I could get lost and never be heard from again. I’d fall into the soft upholstery, and years later they’d find my image burned into the pew like the Shroud of Turin.
Whispering in the darkness, talking to God, listening in the silence.
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