from VCCA Journal, Volume 8, Number 1, Summer 1993, 48-50
© Copyright 1993 VCCA Journal
It's Saturday morning in Charlottesville. Oak buds, crocus blooms, the redbird at the feeder; they urge me to discover the new and fresh in the same old ......... This weekend it's research papers, two stacks, which I didn't get to during the week because of several other professional projects, including efforts to bring this piece to life. Each of us is challenged to do more with less: larger classes, more committee work, more reports to type, etcetera, etcetera. We're aging; having been in the VCCS for a long time, many of us intending to remain at least until retirement. What we do in community colleges is give, give, give. All that giving saps us. So how is it that some find endless spirit while others run down slowly, year after year, longing for the weekend or summer or retirement?
The answer may indeed be personality type. Some may be more naturally inclined to renewal than others. But even so, because I believe in the capacity of human beings to transform themselves, I believe those who are running down--burning out, if you will-- can learn from those whose spirit thrives. On the surface, the differences between the two may be subtle. Most everyone goes through the motions of working. Many are very good at doing so, even when, on the inside, they wish they were anywhere but sitting at that switchboard or standing in front of that class. Some may even think they're fine because they do get through the week one day at a time. There is, to be sure, some satisfaction in trudging on, in spite of the dread of work. Such spirit, though, is a far cry from the joy of work, a degree of which I believe any one of us can achieve regardless of personality type.
The heart of the matter is individual renewal, with emphasis on both words. We hear a lot about professional development, and we sometimes hear that such is especially important for an aging population. This message is delivered as though professional development programs will renew us and keep us fresh. I'm all for professional development programs. And I'm pleased that the chancellor sees fit to provide as much money as possible, with the VCCA as a major vehicle for distribution. It's essential for us to keep current in our fields of work, whatever they might be, and we need financial and other support in doing so. As individuals, we must be supported in choosing activities which suit us. Development for one is horse hockey for another. People learn and grow in different ways.
It might be perfectly fitting for everyone who works in a college to participate in a workshop on the retention of students, as the saying goes, or on better serving the needs of students from other lands. Each individual has roles to play in meeting the needs of the college and the system. Fortunately we've learned (I hope) that such all-college or all-system activities can succeed only if the populace takes part in selection and design. Too often in the past we've sat through hours of hardly-useful talks and workshops by highly-paid presenters from California or Charlottesville, selected by someone who was certain we needed this. On the other hand, all-college and all-system activities which are well selected and well designed can contribute to our professional growth and to our sense of working together for a common purpose.
Nonetheless, professional development is largely an individual matter, and individuals must be encouraged to select and fashion their own activities. I teach developmental and college writing. I also write poetry. My teaching of writing would benefit considerably if I enrolled in a first-rate summer seminar in poetry writing conducted by a teacher-poet who effectively trains participants to critique one another's work. I involve my students in a set of very demanding tasks including the giving and receiving of useful criticism in small groups. I need and want the training offered by such a teacher-poet in the art of group criticism. Of course, such a seminar would also enrich my poetry writing and consequently my personal well being.
Ultimately for renewal, it's personal well being that matters. Only the individual can grasp the relation between professional development and personal well being. If a person is running down, contrived professional development activities can actually make matters worse, can simply add more "meaningless" stuff that "has to" be done. Something else needs to happen, some magical process of personal renewal that enables some people to sustain their spirit year after year while others run down like an old-fashioned clock. In Moby Dick Ishmael tells us he knows it's time to go to sea when he feels like knocking people's hats off and joining every funeral procession that parades by. Some days I just don't feel like responding constructively to "Did we do anything important in class Wednesday?" Like everybody, some days I just feel out of sync.
For me it almost always has to do with one or more elements of my life dominating the others and throwing me out of whack. I live with a variety of foremost passions. If I don't satisfy them with vigor, discipline, and balance, then my whole system gets thrown off and I feel like Ishmael. It seems to be a matter of following through with all the things that matter significantly to me rather than allowing myself to be dominated by one or two of them. As a faculty member I could work sixty hours every week--I have often done so--and it would never be enough to satisfy my conception of what is possible to accomplish for the good of students and the college. But what happens, of course, is that in doing so, I tend to neglect my family, friends, exercise, scholarship, writing, reading, and spiritual growth, not to mention skiing, singing, and fiddling. That is to say, I neglect major portions of myself and begin to feel starved in some parts, bloaty in others. Natural disasters bring about just such imbalance for longer periods: divorce, cancer in a friend, death of a parent.
I've always seem blessed with a profound capacity to renew my spirit, almost no matter what. In recent years having faced natural disasters which really did threaten me as well as the usual run of less significant causes of imbalance, I've experienced opportunity to test and observe that capacity. I've learned that being out of whack is not a condition which happens to me but rather a state of mind which I allow to come over me. Whacked out is a choice. Burnout is a choice. People sometimes ask, "Don't you just die teaching the same courses year after year?" I answer, "No, not at all, because the people are always different. I teach people. Subject matter is meaningless, in fact does not exist apart from people's interaction with it. The essence of history, for instance, is not facts but interpretation." That sort of belief, that sort of choice renews me as a teacher each morning. When a student asks, "Did we do anything important in class Wednesday?" I know he or she is really saying, "Would you please help me make up what I missed Wednesday." Choice.
Only the individual can grasp the nature of choices required for renewal. When I felt really whacked out over my divorce, I chose to seek and benefit from professional counseling. Next summer I'm choosing to work on my fiddling at a music camp in West Virginia. It's now Monday morning early. Those research papers are still in my shoulder bag. I messed around with this article off and on both Saturday and Sunday. I choose to renew my spirit and greet the day. It's raining. The crocus blooms, the oak buds, the redbird on the feeder--there'll soon be time to enjoy my students' papers.
Dick Harrington , who teaches English at Piedmont Virginia Community College in Charlottesville, served as the first President of the Virginia Community Colleges Association.