I'm Karen, and along with Susan, will be your co-host for this Fall/Autumn into Winter (or Spring into Summer for the southern hemisphere). We will be running a 14 week session starting on 17 September and concluding on 10 December. If you'd like to join us, please jump in through the comments on this post. We will have a more formal introduction and session goal setting in week one.
As the light changes and seasons turn, we are hoping that this TLQ session will be a place for collegiality, solidarity and a valuing of self. Some of the themes we imagine will come through will be the balancing (or tilting) between teaching, administration and research; finding and holding space amidst the corporatised and perpetually restructuring university; and negotiating the enactment of seasonal rituals of family celebrations.
For now, we look forward to seeing who will join us. And please feel free to use these comments to share successes and hold your course through challenges in the interim before the next session starts.
Tilting, as in using a spear against an enemy while riding a horse? What a perfect metaphor for the constant effort to give proper attention (and no more) to each of the components of our jobs.
ReplyDeletePlease count me in!
Count me in! And some of us want to explore how to live the Slow principles we read about (which may be tilting at windmills, but what else is there to do but try?).
ReplyDeleteI love that I've just learned what "tilting at windmills" really means. Thanks, Dame Eleanor!
Don Quixote, yes? Never read it completely, but I do remember the bit where he thinks he's fighting giants like the Knights of Old... it's an image I like because I definitely need to be careful that I decide if something is a real giant or a windmill badly seen before I tilt at it this coming semester - that somewhat affects ones tactics!
ReplyDeleteI'd definitely like to continue exploring some of the Slow Professor ideas here too...
Y, en diciendo esto, y encomendándose de todo corazón a su señora Dulcinea, pidiéndole que en tal trance le socorriese, bien cubierto de su rodela, con la lanza en el ristre, arremetió a todo el galope de Rocinante y embistió con el primero molino que estaba delante; y, dándole una lanzada en el aspa, la volvió el viento con tanta furia que hizo la lanza pedazos, llevándose tras sí al caballo y al caballero, que fue rodando muy maltrecho por el campo. Acudió Sancho Panza a socorrerle, a todo el correr de su asno, y cuando llegó halló que no se podía menear: tal fue el golpe que dio con él Rocinante.
Delete-¡Válame Dios! -dijo Sancho-. ¿No le dije yo a vuestra merced que mirase bien lo que hacía, que no eran sino molinos de viento, y no lo podía
ignorar sino quien llevase otros tales en la cabeza?
El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, I.viii.
http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2000/pg2000.txt
I love "tilting"! Could be "tilting at windmills" or a a literal leaning rather than balancing. Either way (or both ways), it's perfect.
ReplyDeleteCount me in for fall!
I'm in! And yes, balancing, prioritizing, deciding when and whether and how to tilt at which (or any) windmills, are definitely parts of the puzzle. I'm still trying to figure out whether I make greater progress on my TLQ goals (some of which are becoming, or at least feeling, a bit urgent) when I focus on just one or two and try to set the others aside for the time being, or whether that just leads to equally-slow progress on fewer goals.
ReplyDeleteI also made some progress on the Slow Professor this week (between 9:30 and 11:30 p.m. on the first day of school, while waiting for AAA to find me in the campus parking garage and change a flat tire -- a win for the kindle edition). I find many of the ideas appealing, but/and am still trying to figure out how it speaks to me as a contingent faculty member on a teaching-only track who still has a fair degree of autonomy in her classroom, and not a lot of other institutional obligations. Reading the book, it seems as if I have fewer demands on, and more control of, my time than the authors describe -- but it sure doesn't feel that way in practice, so the book actually leaves me feeling like I'm not making the best of the advantages I have, which is definitely not encouraging (and not, I'm sure, the authors' intention; I'm just reminded on a pretty regular basis that it is written from a tenure-track point of view, and requires considerable translation/adaptation to speak to my situation).
I'm also not sure I've ever either taken as much joy in being in the classroom, or felt as nervous about that part of the job, as the author of the teaching chapter does, so I'm having a bit of trouble connecting to the one chapter that *is* directly about my work (I enjoy designing curriculum/the conditions for learning, and working with students individually, but, since I learn best on my own myself, I've never been tremendously fascinated or energized by in-the-classroom teaching, though I'm pretty sure I do it competently enough. In short, while I don't question that learning is a social experience, I'm also aware that it can, perhaps should, be a solitary one, and probably see an effective class -- in-person or online -- as more a balance of the two than the author of that chapter).
On the other hand, I find the general idea that students and professors need time, and less pressure to arrive at predetermined outcomes at predetermined points, very much in line with my own thinking, and will probably end up citing both the book and its sources in some of my own writing about this summer's grant project and its purposes (assuming that I decide that writing about the grant project and its purposes is a priority).
And the whole corporatizating/perpetually restructuring aspect is definitely very much to the fore at our institution this fall (a new budget model is in place, and various decisions are flowing from that), and I'm feeling the effects, mostly indirectly rather than directly, but still, it's there. So having a(nother) framework for thinking about those aspects of my experience is helpful.
So I'm glad to have a bit of time to think about goals before we actually start, and will enjoy seeing how others apply the Slow Professor's ideas to their own work, and continue to think about how they might apply to mine.
What a way to end the first day of classes. I wonder if it's sometimes useful to have more things to move between? (i've been procrastinating on a task for the last day and a half, and I wonder, should I do something else?)
DeleteI think a certain amount of variety *is* useful, especially if there are some interconnections as well as some differences between/among the possibilities. Of course too much variety (too much to do, period) is overwhelming, and the balance probably varies from person to person. I'm reasonably fond of routine/familiarity, don't bore easily, and do overwhelm somewhat easily when there are too many different things to keep track of, so I'm reasonably well-suited to my present job. Still, I'm finding it a bit boring but also periodically overwhelming (mostly in the sense of keeping track of a lot of small details, since the variety all comes in having different sections on different schedules/platforms), which is not really a good combination. And I'm not quite sure whether the solution is to look for opportunities to do something different within the academy (probably at my present institution, since I don't think I'm well-positioned to see a job elsewhere) -- something that comes with a course release, so I don't get truly overwhelmed -- or to try to routinize my teaching even more -- which may be possible -- and focus any freed-up time/energy (which is likely to come at only at certain times of the year, but they're somewhat predictable) to do things like research and writing (without thinking much about how, if at all, they'll contribute to my career). I could also, of course, try to fit in some research and writing that *would* contribute to my career, but it's really hard to tell what that is at this point.
DeleteAnd I come back to the idea that in some ways I have more time, and freedom, than the target audience for the book, but I don't feel like I'm making the best of it.
For the love of metaphors, analogies, and meaning-making, I am looking forward to the continuing conversation.
ReplyDeleteI'm in! Much as everyone has said, the image of "tilting" appeals to me--a fit image for the struggle to organize the academic life (although I do think about the Augean stables sometimes!)
ReplyDeleteThe Augean stables are very resonant, particularly for the parts that have to be done over and over and over again (which is the majority of my job).
DeleteYes please!!! Thanks to our new hosts for getting a new session started, and to our previous ones for excellent discussion and encouragement!
ReplyDelete