I never went to school for this

I never went to school to be a teacher. I went to college to get an education. I didn’t even apparently care about the degree. My stats for the BA:

• 6-7 majors
• 9 years
• 7 schools
• 3 states
• 11-12 moves

There was no part of my MA or PhD experiences that were “normal” either. And though I eventually trained to be a university teacher (sort of), nothing I ever learned in school prepared me for the work you all pulled off at the end of this term in the poster presentation sessions (and on your blogs with case studies and more).

No one ever said these were the things I would feel about teaching or experience as a teacher:

1. I was miserable when we were on f2f hiatus because I knew how challenging the writing requirements were and how hard you all would have to work, pretty much without me being around all the time, and perhaps in an environment you hadn’t worked in much.
2. Hybrid classes are supposed to be hip, but I missed being in class with you all (I heard what y’all said about how it could be better next time).
3. And I missed talking with you–in person.
4. But I learned so much from your blogs, it was remarkable–every day I had some new incredibly insightful thing to read from one or more of you.
5. AND having class when we weren’t supposed to have class at Panera was actually a great class.
6. I was so nervous the night before the poster session I could hardly sleep–did you know I was a wreck with worrying? I hope not.
7. I was so elated at and after the first poster session, I couldn’t imagine being happier.
8. Until the next poster session (when y’all brought food–brilliant!).
9. I was so uptight about the way I structured the class because it was a real loopy trip to get from point A to point B (I mean recursive with a lot of curves, too). It had to be experienced, and y’all had to find your own ways to point B, though I knew where it was. If I’d just told you one thing or another to push you to point B, it would have been like giving you a great mystery novel to read and saying the butler did it as I handed over the book.
10. You got to point B in 15 different ways, and I felt like we stopped Time.

I have never required a final presentation project like we did, but it was amazing how each of you found a way to express what you had done or experienced (and even came up with a hilarious Girl Talk possible final poster project which would have been great but an F–or maybe not…). You got what you needed from everything you read and did in order to do the last part of the work for the class–just like I dreamed. You studied a program and then used what you learned to create your own thing. You read about open things and found ways to own that concept that worked for each of you. You read essays of your own choosing that sparked great conversation. You reviewed books that you got to pick–and used that to help you craft blog entries, think about the case study, and create a course or program. Righteous. Just like you were supposed to do–mashing up the readings, the ideas, the videos, the concepts–remixing for your own purposes–and just simply and utterly getting the rhetorical velocity of what we were doing. Everything you did had an impact on each other. There is no better illustration of rhetorical velocity than the writing you did this summer and its effect on everyone in this class. You rocked it.

I think teaching can’t keep getting better, but it does. When I decided to come back to this profession, I wasn’t sure it was for me, nor was I convinced that I could do it. Well, I knew I could do it, but my fear was I couldn’t do it very well. I still have uncertainty and doubt–every single term. I regularly wonder if I’ve said or done the right thing, planned the right way, whether this day or that day was the day I needed to plan to the finest detail or wing it and see where discussion might take us. I always worry that my approach is too uncomfortable for too many students, that I’m not present enough to be a good teacher (administration is a huge pull on my mental energy and actual time). I don’t think that my worries about my worthiness or ability will ever go away. And maybe that’s what makes it such a breathtaking journey. If I got too comfy, too sure I was right, maybe I’d stop having fun.

And despite that, I’m going to say something I know is right: you are why I teach. You are the reason I get up in the morning and can’t wait to come to work. You are the reason I keep learning. You are the reason why I want to keep learning. You are the reason I will never teach the same class twice. You are the reason I love writing in a whole new way. You are it.

You’re better than a quad venti white chocolate mocha with raspberry and extra whip.

Like any human, I have done things I didn’t like, consequently regretted, and found I couldn’t take back or change, but my decision in 2007 to walk back in a college classroom to teach writing and British literature–the best professional decision of my life.

Thank you for your commitment to this course, your intellectual curiosity, your openness to new ideas and ways of working, and your kindness to each other. Oscar Wilde wrote this: “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” That’s a bit grim but better than Thomas Hobbes’s vision of life as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” (The Leviathan). Wilde knew better than many how hard life could be, even for a writer whose genius regularly showed up for work. You’ll be challenged by events in your life and by those around you, not always in good ways. You’re going to cry some and laugh some. Through all of it, keep looking at the stars. That’s the one thing you can always own: your focus, your attitude, your decision to act rather than only react. You may be in the gutter, but you get to choose what you see while you’re there.

And sometimes we just doggedly crawl right out of the gutter, shake off the muck and grime, and change the world while we’re doing it–as part of the Learning Revolution, as part of the WAC movement, as part of the Open movement, as part of a learning commons, along with our geniuses who sometimes show up to help us do our dance, and with each other.

I wish you depth in your learning, breadth in your friendships, unlimited reach for your dreams, and rhetorical velocity for your writing. Always.