So the semester is finally coming to an end. It's been a long, long semeter with a lot of frustration and anxiety. There was a constant battle over the traffic, parking spot and trying to grade student paper while trying to keep up with my own things. Yesterday during Colloquium, one of my collegues really laid it out to our professor. At first I was a bit uncomfortable with her being so straight forward and I guess, for a lack of a better word, "mean." She told him the 2 hours we spent every week just sitting there just talking and troubleshooting certain problematic students didn't do anything for us. She told him she felt the class was a waste of her time because the "talking" part could just as easily take place in our office and we do that anyway. What she was said we really needed was syllabus and lesson plan support. I definitely agree with her. If we did get syllabus support or even lesson plan support, half the stress we had to deal with as new GTAs would't have affected us. Most of us were just improvising as we went; I definitely did. But the only thing is... our professor is also the chair of the English department... so I don't know if that was a smart move on her part. When I went to talk to him later on, he did seem a bit upset and asked me my opnion on it. I played it safe by saying it would have definitely helped to have lesson planning support but I didn't think the class was a complete waste. I think that made him feel better because he then sent out an email kind of saying what I said.
Either way, that was interesting to say the least. But what I really want to talk about is something that many people take for granted or think is cliche. One of these mornings when I was so very tried and didn't want to do anything at all but still had to get out of bed to teach, I was having not such a great morning. I was a bit behind on the grading and I barely got any sleep. I risked being late by stopping at a DD on the way to school. Before I got out, I was already not looking forward to going in because that place is prominently white and being me usually doesn't sit well with them. But once I got there, I was greated with such a smile and such a nice good morning it just made my day. Obviously, for the working at DD it was just part of his job (that almost all other employees fail to do) but the guy's cheerful attitude and bright smile really lifted the anxiety a bit. And to my surprise, the other guy who was walking in around the same time as me, I thought he was giving me a dirty look or that he was judging me. Instead, he held the door open for me and said Salam with such a nice smile. It helped me realize that the judgement I was afraid people were going to pass on me... I was doing it myself. I assumed the guy would be a jerk because he was covered in tattoos and was wearing laymen clothes. By the time I walked out of there, it reminded me once again that I shouldn't be so quick to judge because I must the change I want to see in the world.
And also, most importantly... smile at people. You never know what your smile could do for someone :)
0 comments:
Post a Comment