I miss teaching

It’s summer. I am “unemployed” in the sense I am not working for pay. What am I doing? I’m writing my dissertation to defend the last week of August. But I miss teaching!

I find it hard to go from teaching (and/or being a teaching assistant) to writing for 3 months. Granted, I don’t have as many emails and other teaching things taking away from my writing time. But writing can be quite isolating. I force myself to go to the coffee shop just to be around other people.  It can be isolating.

I  love teaching because it is so interactive. Not only do I “teach” my students, but l learn from them. They have great stories and knowledge to bring to the class.

Because partner is in a new job and starting a MS in comp sci next semester, money is tight.  I am afraid to plan a trip in the midst of not knowing how much I have to edit, etc… Thus, no “real” vacations planned this year, which is a bit depressing. However, this summer I feel the need to connect with family, so I look forward to our “retreats” back to IA and NE.  Maybe next summer?

Yea, that’s my life this summer! But soon I will have that PhD behind my name.

access, abilities, and disabilities

I used to work with people with disabilities during high school and college. Thus, the issue is important to me as I still visit the people I used to work with when I go back to Nebraska.  I think sociologists have paid little attention to the issues of disabilities, in lieu of Goffman’s work on stigma.  Race, class, and gender seem to be the statuses we are most concerned about. However, I think ability and disability are important issues for sociologists to engage in.

There was an article in Sunday’s Mpls Start Tribune about Valley Fair’s new policy on people with disabilities. In short, they must wait in line with everyone else now  instead of using a special entrance to the rides. Except they have bent the rules for Autistic children because they get angry. In the article, people are quoted saying though parents are frustrated, this is a good thing because people with disabilities are treated the same as everyone else.  Here is a link to the article

http://www.startribune.com/local/south/20631259.html?location_refer=Homepage

I thought about this article a lot yesterday. There are few things from a sociological perspective that need to be addressed. One is that the idea that only one person from one organization is quoted saying this is a good thing because now people with disabilities are treated the same.  Is this the consensus? Where are the voices of others; especially those with diabilities?

But the idea of “equal” also needs to be explored. Okay, so one argument in favor of this would be that having a different access to the rides is like lowering the bar for women in sports, math, etc. But the other part of me really hones in on how this “equal access” argument relates to arguments against affirmative action. That is, it assumes that there is a level playing field. The structures of society have not set up an equal playing field for many people with different statuses: gender, race, class, and disabilities. Hence, how can we say it’s equal when society has structured inequity?  Though there are biological and psychological roots to disabilities, we have also socially constructed the meaning of disability and put a stigma on it.

grief

I don’t even know what to title this post.  As you may have noticed from previous ones, there has been issues with our current day care provider and I’m still in the state of mourning for my grandmother.  It’s been a rough week that has taken a toll on my sleeping and writing.

The day care issue will be taken care of, with a degree of emotion and apprehension, but ultimately going with my gut instinct on what I should do.  Without getting into the details, sociologically examining this situation has helped me cope with it.  To say the least, as a sociologist, I believe in the importance of the “social” in a child’s development.  Transitioning the little one from an in-home to day-care center will be hard, but I believe there will positive outcomes for her and our family. She will be able to interact with many children her age and because of its location in the city, she will playing with a diverse array of children. These are experiences I did not get as a child that I think will beneficial to her.  I have so much more to say about this in which I could turn this into a research project sometime concerning work and boundaries with day care providers or a study regarding gender and motherhood in relation to different kinds of day care. I know this probably doesn’t make sense now, but I just can’t get into the details yet.

I have not wrote much on my grandmother since her funeral. The funeral itself was nice in which may father gave a small speech about my grandma’s life.  I find the grief and pain hit when I’m alone.  No, my grandma did not raise me instead of my parents. She just did play the grandmother role.  I knew the day would come and even through hospice, the time was coming. But it didn’t seem real.  My other grandmother died when I was five and I didn’t know her well, so it was quite different. We lost my husband’s great-grandmother last summer who I loved and I miss, but I had only known her the ten years I had known the family.

I’m happy to have the many memories of my grandma. In fact, I felt a bit bad at the funeral when I was with my cousins who did not see her as often because they live in Colorado.  Even through college and grad school, I still went to visit my grandma every time I came home. I tried to call her in-between times to. And now I really want to call her and she’ not there.

I know she’s not coming back and she’s in heaven, but I miss her terribly. I miss the unconditional love of a grandmother. I miss her saying I love you on the phone. I miss her laughing at the cuteness of our daughter and dog. I even miss the conversations in which she was starting to loose her mind in that she asked the same questions over and over.

In analyzing my grief, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is a loss of love in my life. I know spiritually there is still love, but right now I still miss the things associated with a living body that express love such as speech, hugs, and the so forth. I know my grief will heal with time

parenthood & making decisions

Parenthood is one of the toughest roles we play. It’s more work that going to grad school, finishing a dissertation, teaching a class for the first time. No matter what we do, our children will be on our mind. As they become older, but not old enough to truly verbalize what they are thinking and feeling, we make decisions and hope they are the best.

My little one is going to switch day care. Yes, a small thing, but a decision that has been hard. She needs kids her age to play with. She needs to learn to share, stand on her own, and all those other things about socialization. Of course, I’m nervous about this impending transition, but even more nervous to tell her current day care provider who has been with her since the beginning. But I think sociology has taught me a lot about this that I don’t have time to explain now and my gut tells me its time to move on. In home was great for the individual attention and all the extra things they did for us. But there are some things in home cannot give (i.e. when the daycare provider is sick), having dual working parents with one in school also (partners turn as soon as I am finished this summer).  I know this will be hard on everyone, but I think it is the best decision. As a sociologist, I believe socialization is very important and much learning is from being around others. In her new day care, there will be kids from many different ethnicities and nationalities along with a divers income line. She will learn to play with kids and how to socialize.

This probably isn’t interesting to others, but it is something I have struggled with as a working parent.

What teaching has taught me about life

In having a personal situation that I cannot really discuss, but that is causing great drama, I’ve thought about teaching and how what we learn in this career has great lessons for life, especially when you are teaching college students. This situation has nothing to do with teaching, but instead daycare for my child.

I have been teaching for four years at multiple schools and many different classes. When I started teaching I was nervous, not as good as I am now, and took everything to heart. However, I’ve become a better teacher, a good one if I might say. But importantly this meant learning some lessons. One, you have to be strong and believe in yourself.  You won’t be perfect all the time, but that doesn’t mean you are globally bad. Two, if students have concerns, listen to them and work with the concerns. If you can’t  change something, listening without defense helps the situation tremendously for both you and the student.  Three, students will always give you critique.. there is going to be something that they will not like. But this doesn’t mean they do not like you nor that your entire class or teaching is horrible. And, sometimes these critiques or concerns can help you as a teacher improve your teaching and the class or help a certain students succeed.

Have I always been the best in every situation. No, I’m human. But have I learned as I have aged and gained more teaching experience. Yes and I’ve learned that criticism will always be there, but you cannot let this bring you completely down.

When younger grad students talk to me about teaching now, I feel some of the most important things I can tell them is that you have to develop your own style and feel comfortable in the classroom. You have to understand you will not please everyone.  If a student has a concern or critique, listen to it. You may be able to change some things, but at the least I think students want someone to hear them out (granted we can talk about college as a business relationship, but I think there is still a power dynamic b/w students and the instructor). At the least, this opens communication between you and the student, which can have positive effects on their learning and your teaching.  Every job is full of critiques… this is part of work and life. You have to decide how to deal with these and learn to do so in a professional manner.