All posts by Kimberly Williams

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Lo Hice

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Professional development is probably one of my favorite parts of my job.  I thrive on changes and possibilities, and professional development keeps life from getting too still  or predictable.

I tend to think of professional development as conferences and research and breakout sessions, but I think any time we push ourselves, either professionally or personally, we stand to develop as humans.

Wednesday night I found myself at GCC’s first bilingual open mic poetry reading. I organized it as part of my job as directing the creative writing program here at the college, so it made sense that I was there.  We were going to have two hosts and some featured guests who would read poetry in both Spanish and English after the open mic portion of the evening.  My job was to be there, represent GCC, encourage community and student members who wanted to read, and make sure nothing went wrong with technology. I had been planning an event like this for a year — not that it took that long to plan, but that I had the idea that long ago, and it just took a while to produce.  Since GCC is a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI), and many of our  students and community members are Spanish speakers, why not celebrate writing and creativity by offering an evening for expression in both languages?

What I didn’t expect was the following: The host who organized the entire evening, beginning to end, couldn’t come at the last minute due to a family emergency. The host who was to actually serve as the emcee got stuck in Phoenix rush hour traffic and was half an hour late. That meant that I had to get the evening started. I had to speak Spanish into a microphone and have it broadcast before fluent Spanish speakers. Certainly my Spanish is conversational, but speaking in front of a group of people in English is hard enough, even as a teacher (because it’s not my classroom, my students, a zone I am familiar in). Doing so in a different language was scary enough to make me break into a real sweat.

I don’t know how I did.  It was nobody’s job to provide me with feedback, and in the moment I was too panicked to notice anything besides my own panic.  Eventually, the real host appeared and took over. He was charming, funny, and completely fluent in both languages.  The evening went on and my magnified moment of mass uncertainty drifted away.

What I do know is that Wednesday night professional development happened.  To me. I stretched my comfort zone more than a hair. Whether I did well or not seems almost moot.  What matters at this point is that we had the event, it was well attended and fun, and I did what I had to do to facilitate it.  In the meantime, my entire self, like the Grinch’s heart at the end of the book, grew a few sizes that day. I did it.  Lo hice.

 
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Learning to Pronounce ‘Siobhan’: Success Is All in the Context

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In order to gain energy and inspiration to write this blog, I sat down with the second half of my pint of delicious Ben & Jerry’s Mint Chocolate Cookie ice cream that I earned last week.  And while it inspired my taste buds, little else happened until I thought long and hard about what made this week successful. At first, it wasn’t obvious.

I have to agree with Beth Eyres on this one.  Week 4 has been tough. Papers are coming due and need attention.  I have had an ear infection all week, and although it arrived without pain, I feel like I’ve been living in a cross between a cave and a wind tunnel that comes with live amplifier feedback directly plugged into my brain.

On top of that, my son has had the flu–a pretty bad case of it.  One day he slept for 20 of 24 hours. He can’t get the flu shot because it’s made in egg shells, which causes a strong allergic reaction in him. I get the flu shot in case he comes down with it.  I didn’t expect to get the ear infection instead.  Happily, today he’s pretty normal again.

At any rate, knowing that by the week’s end I’d have a blog to write, I have been going about my week trying to think of a student success story, or any success story, to share.  But my success has simply been making it through this week.  My success has been that on the Friday in the fourth week of classes, I was to teach 48 students, and 44 made it to classes between two different sections.  I think that’s a pretty good turn out given the types of viruses and bacteria that are clearly running rampant.  My success was also that a (small) handful of students appeared unexpectedly at the GCC Reads meeting that I facilitated this afternoon. Last week, only two people appeared, and only one said that she’d be able to come back. I fully expected to walk into an empty room today. Instead, I was met by four faces, three of which were smiling and excited to discuss the love of reading, pets, and autism. (And the fourth person wasn’t sure why he was there, but that was okay, too.)  Together, as a group, we learned how to pronounce the Irish woman’s name, Siobhan, who is one of the characters in the book.  A student was that interested to ask how to say it, and I was grateful to him for making me look it up on the spot. I quickly learned that I had already read the entire novel once mispronouncing the name in my head.  Apparently, it is said, “Sha-vonne” with an Irish accent, to wit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zW-aAOB1E8

My final success of today was that I filed a group travel form for the MEChA nationals conference next month *using the new system* and it worked!

Today’s realization: successes are small and contextual. What makes me feel successful today may not be nearly as thrilling in a different week.  But this week?  Cursed week four?  Well, I’ll take it!

 
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How I Make a Difference: A Reflective Moment with Some Self-Deprecation

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These days, I mostly make a difference by reminding myself (constantly) that I am human.  Of course, I don’t have to make sure to do this, my subconscious, faulty memory, and non-linear nature do this for me naturally.  During office hours today, for example, I sat down to prepare a new assignment  for a creative writing class only to think, half way through writing the assignment This seems oddly familiar. Oh, yes, last week. It was already familiar because I had anticipated my poor memory and had already prepared the assignment. Wednesday, to be specific, I had already written the instructions, fully anticipating that Monday, one of my busy teaching days, I could do something else with that time.  Did I remember that?  No, not until I was half an hour into repeating my own endeavors.

This realization came after seven Canvas emails that I received while I was teaching my first class of the day informing me that the due date I had on an assignment was from 2015.

And then I received the gentle 6X6 email reminder, and I remembered that I forgot to post last week’s entry.

It is so hard to juggle everything.  And I have it pretty good: I already have my degrees.  I live close to work and don’t have a long commute. I don’t have a part-time job on top of my full-time job. I simply get to teach. Our students have such full lives: they go to school and work. They go to school and work and parent.  They go to school and work and parent and have extra-curriculars.  As the average freshman composition writer might note, “And the list goes on.”

As a big picture person, I struggle anymore to get the details right. I think that youthful brain cells used to compensate for my propensity for forgetting the little things. But now that I’ve been teaching for well over two decades, I just don’t have that option any more.  My young brain cells are middle-aged. They are forgetful, muddled, mixed up. They might not make it to the end of the paragraph in time to remember the point. That’s both a literal and figurative truth about my life right now.

My instinct is to be hard on myself. Other people (mostly on TV) make it look so easy. But I think to set a different example for our students. I admit my errors.  I can now even say, “My bad,” without wincing. And I do so in public.  In front of my classes or in conferences with my students or in emails with them.  I say, “I was supposed to set the date for the assignment on Canvas for 2016, but instead it came out A.D. 201, and now everybody’s paper is flagged as late. Who knows why this happened?”

If I see a student trying hard to juggle it all, and that student is willing to communicate with me, I will be flexible. I will be understanding, and I will also encourage that student to see that it’s impossible (at least for me) to remember everything, and it’s OK. I’m slowly learning that  forgetting details doesn’t mean the end of the world, and I try to share that new-found wisdom with my students. Last week a student emailed me, “I got the assignment done. I hit ‘save’, and in my head I was done two days early, and I could go on to my other classes’ assignments. I totally forgot to post it to Canvas though,” she admitted.  At this point, I easily remembered how quickly I, too, forget.  “Okay,” I wrote back. “Post what you have and remind me in the comments section of Canvas not to mark it late.”

Our students need encouragement.  I know this because I, too, need encouragement–that reason to push past the stress and the deadlines and all of the multiple tasks and responsibilities that demand out attention seemingly simultaneously.  While I seem to be forgetting most everything else these days, I can at least remember that.

 
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Naming Names

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I am willing to name names, and I have two.

First of all, Laura Dodrill.

When I arrived at GCC in the fall of 2012 fresh from out-of-state, I had absolutely no prior experience teaching for a school in the Maricopa system. I was coming from a community college in New Mexico where I had tenure and seniority in my department. I was coming from a school where the number of full-time faculty in the English department (about 12) was about one-third the number it is here at GGC.  In short, I was coming from a place where I felt I made a difference in many ways beyond teaching.  While teaching here felt as fulfilling as it did there right from the start, I was now at a much bigger school in a much more complicated system.  Weeks and semesters were passing, and I was surprised at how long it was taking me to feel a part of GCC in any other way than teaching.  Sometimes, I simply felt adrift.  I would go to meetings in my own department and not recognize everyone I was sitting amongst.

But there was Laura.

Laura was assigned to be my FYRE mentor. FYRE is the First Year Residential Faculty Experience (or something really close to that). That meant that Laura had to mentor me for an entire academic year. She did so willingly and with aplomb. She answered (with incredible patience) my most basic questions, including how to use my office phone.  I would send her emails asking what acronyms meant (FEP, FYE, SOP, FPG…) .  She would answer cheerfully. She brought me a plant for my office.  She checked in on me from time to time popping by my office.  Right from the start, (to use current parlance) I knew she had my back. She still has my back. I can call her, write her, or go to her with any kind of concern. That kind of relationship–the kind where I know my mistakes will be forgiven and my concerns will be heard–is so precious to me that it has made me want to be a better teacher and colleague, and it made me want to find my place at GCC.

And then Laura introduced me to Celeste.

When it came time to plan the 2014 fall schedules (one year in advance in 2013) Laura suggested I join her and Celeste Walls in teaching an FYE (First Year Experience) learning community. Laura and Celeste had already done this together.  Laura would teach a Counseling and Personal Development class (CPD), and Celeste would teach an Introduction to  Communications class.  I would join them by teaching a Developmental Composition course (ENG 091). Because scheduling is planned so far in advance,  I had never met Celeste before the first time the three of us sat down in early August 2014 to align our plans for teaching the FYE that coming semester. We had emailed each other prior to that but had  never met as a threesome in person.

What transpired for me this past fall was far more than being one-third of a learning community. Because Laura, Celeste, and I met so regularly to debrief about our cohort, we formed a bond. And Celeste Walls became the second person at GCC (besides students) who inspired me to be a better person, teacher, and colleague. I wanted my class to match her class.  She has high standards for everyone — her students, her colleagues, and herself.  I wanted to meet her standards.  Furthermore, if I was having trouble drawing out a shy student in my class, I could ask for her and Laura’s advice.  If an assignment didn’t go well, I could debrief with them and figure out what went wrong.  I could present either one of them with challenges I was having in the classroom (and not just the FYE classroom, but in any one of my classes), and they’d respond thoughtfully and make suggestions. But what I love most about Celeste is that she’s really interested in what I say.  She leans forward to listen when I speak. She sets a high professional bar and simply through her actions, those around her are encouraged to reach it.

Laura and Celeste aren’t only outstanding teachers and colleagues.  They are the kind of people who reassure others by making a place for them in the community.  Largely because of them, I’ve been able to settle in. Who wouldn’t be inspired hanging around with people like that?

 
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What I Do When I Have “A Week”: The Human Connection

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It’s been a week. Not to over-share, but this week I put $3000 into repairs for my car. This did not even fix the A/C blower that still works inconsistently. Luckily, I can get the blower to work if I open the driver’s door while the car is running and then slam it shut really hard. I thank my eleven year-old for helping me figure out that tip.

Also, this week, my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease, and though my family has known for a while that something is terribly wrong with my dad and we weren’t surprised at the diagnosis, I’ve still felt a lot of sadness this week.

In addition, my eleven year-old had a orthodontic installation on Tuesday afternoon, which has now given him a speech impediment. (He thayth hith Th’th funny now.) and a sore mouth. This has made him cranky. He also can’t eat well and has had his fill of pudding, apple sauce, and soup this week.

There are also other stressors on our family plate, like are on all family’s plates, but I’ll spare you those.

So why do I share all of this personal information with people I don’t really know that well? It’s something about that human connection. And that’s the same reason why I teach: for the human connection.

What keeps me afloat in a week like this one? My work. My students. Every day is an opportunity to make a difference in some small way. You have to love a job like that. And I think when I can make a difference, even in a small way, I can step out of my own personal difficulties, even for a little while.  While I’m helping a student edit his essay that’s due that evening, I’m wholly invested in our work in that moment together. Then, I don’t have to worry about my dad or my son or the car.

Furthermore, working daily with my students means that I am reminded daily that everyone has challenges. We just all do. I’m no different than any other person who’s sitting in a chair in my class, except that I have my degree, and I get to use it in a meaningful way. Now, I can help others work toward their goals, despite their personal challenges.  Keeping in mind that we all have difficulties while attempting to achieve our goals means that I can work with students more mindfully.  Like me, like everyone else, they are managing a lot.

Earlier this week, one of my twenty-something year-old students just had surgery to remove thyroid cancer from her body. She emailed me last night to say that the surgery went well but that she is in a lot of pain. I wrote her back and told her to sleep and rest as much as she could. Next week, if she’s able, she can take up her writing again for our course. And then she can use Spring Break to catch up.

Obviously, this student’s  cancer surgery  this week completely pales  my own worries or challenges. In January, she knew this surgery was looming and asked at the beginning of the semester if I would work with her when the time arrived. I said I would. I figure if she wants to continue her education while fighting cancer, she should. In fact, I find her approach to be incredibly brave. It would be easy to give up one’s educational goals in the face of cancer, even if only for the semester.

So I as I teach my students daily, they teach me. And these lessons sustain me–especially through the rough weeks.  And I’m sharing all of this with you, just in case maybe just one of you has had a challenging week, too. 🙂

 
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Big Lesson in a Small Moment

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Last spring, I was leaving the college later in the afternoon on a Friday. Anyone who has stayed late on a Friday knows that there aren’t too many people around after about 3:30. About that time on this day, I realized I was a little late for picking up my son, so I added a dash of hurry as I crossed the north parking lot to my car. The lot was almost empty, open and still like a sea of pavement.

I tossed my work bag in the back seat, hopped in and pulled around near the Life Science building to head toward the exit. In the distance, I saw two young men at the fringe of the lot, near the Tech buildings, waving at me with both arms over their heads as if to hail me. I thought to myself, “Do they need help? If they need help, I’m going to have to refer them to security. I just don’t have time to help anyone right now.” But I turned the car in their direction.

They kept waving as I drove toward them. Finally, one guy broke into a run, heading straight for the car, leaving his friend behind him, so I stopped and rolled down my window.

“Hey! You’re driving with your trunk open!” he shouted. I don’t know how I hadn’t noticed. But I hadn’t. When I checked the review mirror, the view was indeed blocked by a sheet of silver.

At this point, he was nearing the car. “Do you want me to close it for you?”

“Sure,” I mumbled.

Gratefully.

He slammed it shut, and I saw him in the rearview mirror waving amiably as I headed for 59th Ave. I waved thanks to him out the window.

The lesson for me at that moment was clear: we all need help even when we don’t know that we need help. The best I (or anyone) can do is let myself receive help gratefully when it comes–especially when it arrives before I even know that I need it.

 
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A Sound Investment

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After teaching here for five semesters, I can say that one of the best parts of working for a college in the Maricopa District is the plethora professional development opportunities available.  Everything from the robust CTLE’s we find on each Maricopa campus to the MCLI Learn Shops and the individual funding for conferences makes for invaluable growth opportunities that can be found everywhere from right on campus, across the Valley, or across the country.

I am the kind of faculty person to take advantage of every development opportunity that I can–as much as my schedule, energy, and family allow.  I love to travel to new places, and am grateful that since I’ve joined GCC, I’ve been able to go to conferences as far away as New Orleans and Seattle.

The past few weeks, however, I’ve been making the long drive out to Scottdale Community College to attend an MCLI Learn Shop — Engaging Students through Active Learning (ESAL) taught by Rosie Magarelli.  This is, by far and away, the best professional development I’ve experienced in many years–and there’s some pretty stiff competition.  Still, attending this Learn Shop has reinvigorated my teaching in more direct ways than any other opportunity has.  Most importantly, it’s made me incredibly mindful of my connections with each student in class.  The ESAL Learn Shop has me asking some important questions that professors can begin to take for granted after teaching for so long (in my case, since 1992 at the college level): 1) Am I constructing a safe environment for each student in class to participate, speak up, and engage in?  2) Am I doing the most to get and retain the students’ attentions?  3) What can I do differently and more effectively to provide these important aspects of learning for my students?

I’ve also learned about neurons and the brain — *how* humans learn. I’ve learned about Brain Myths and brain plasticity.  I’ve learned the biology of learning.  That’s pretty cool.

Rosie teaches the Learn Shop to model the content: we faculty are actively engaged learners–the entire time.   And since sessions run for just over three hours each, that’s been important.  This past month, I’ve been able feel exactly how engaging active learning feels, and I’ve been learning simple techniques, which I can work into my courses right away or little by little over time.  But by being in Rosie’s Learn Shop, I’ve put back on the learners shoes, and they feel great to walk in!

Last night (Thursday), as I was making the long drive home through rush hour traffic  from Scottsdale to the Phoenix/Glendale border, I felt such gratitude for the ESAL Learn Shop.  But I also felt immense gratitude to be able to work for an organization that really provides professional development as a top priority. In investing time, energy and resources into me, MCCCD is investing time and energy into our students and our entire learning community.

 
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A Gift from Thomas

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After teaching at the college level for over two decades, I have heard so many stories. And each new story doesn’t diminish the one before it.  All week I’ve been wondering which story to tell, which one to choose.

Then, Thomas came by my office just yesterday (Thursday of this week) and gifted me with this one.

For seven years, Thomas was a U.S. Marine. In an introductory email to me earlier this semester, he told me that the transition back to civilian life has been much more difficult than he ever expected and that this has been a primary source of struggle for him in his daily life.

Thomas is one of my ENG 091 students this semester. He sits in front and asks questions. Sometimes, he even teases me and gives me a hard time. Early in the semester, this made me wary. Then I realized he wouldn’t feel free to act that way if he didn’t feel comfortable in my classroom, and so I started to banter back–just a little.

Yesterday, after class, he asked if he could come by to see me. My regular office hours didn’t fit his schedule, and he wanted to make an appointment. I don’t know how many other faculty have noticed, over the years, that students don’t drop by in person like they used to. They are *much* more likely to email me a question than come by my office, even if they’re just in the next building over. So when Thomas said he wanted to come by, I made time for him.

He arrived at my office a full five minutes early. He folded his six-foot-long plus body into the office chair that I reserve for visitors. Shyly, he took out a paper out of his military-issued backpack. “This is my paper for the assignment you gave us last week. I’ve never written anything like it before. I want to know if it’s any good. Am I even on the right track?”

I had assigned Thomas’s class a 2-3 paragraph descriptive paper wherein they were asked to capture a specific place on campus using words. Thomas had explored the Life Science building with curiosity. He’d tried using all of the techniques that we’d talk about that week in class: figurative language, sensory details, objective and subjective details. It was all there in an interesting draft that was full of his voice. His sense of purpose was clear: look around at your surroundings every day. It’s too easy, his paper concluded, to take for granted where we work or go to school daily. Beauty, his writing reminded me, is everywhere. Even in a campus building that I walk by at least twice a day.

I told him that his paper was rich and meaningful and, most of all, well written, and he seemed stunned. He admitted that all three of his classes were going well this semester, and that being at GCC was finally helping him ease back into civilian life.

He told me that while a Marine, he had served tours in Afghanistan, Iraq, and near Bogota, Colombia. In Colombia, he was charged with helping a town construct a potable water system. He was helping people have better lives in the most basic way. With war in the Middle East going on for years now, it’s easy to forget that our military provides so much humanitarian aid around the entire world, and this was one of Thomas’s jobs.

Suddenly, several emotions converged at once. I realized that this young man who had spent time in some of the most dangerous parts of our world, who had held weapons in his hands on a daily basis, had been intimidated by a 2-3 paragraph writing assignment. And, in a time when students don’t often elect to communicate face-to-face, he had summoned the courage to come talk to me in my office. He left my office with a big smile on his face. He’d done well on his draft. He made an important connection with a teacher, and, without even knowing it, he had brought me a tiny part of the world just by coming to my office. So then the biggest emotion of all washed across me, and it stayed with me all day: it is for these moments and interactions–it is both to collect and participate in these very stories–that I teach.

 
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In Cat Puke and Making a Difference

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How do I make a difference?

That’s a difficult question on a difficult day.
My day began this morning, early, when I stuck my elbow in cat throw up. Before I realized what I had done, I managed to rub the tender pink puke all over my black pants.

I changed pants and reported to my 8:30 a.m. ENG 091 class where I had to face my students with professionalism and aplomb. I had to keep in mind the new best practices I was learning for active engagement through the recent MCLI LearnShop in Scottsdale when all I wanted to do was go back to bed. Besides the cat puke, I have custody issues for my youngest son weighing on my mind. I am Out of Sorts. I do not want to be In Charge today.

I don’t know how I make a difference. I’ve been teaching at the college level for over twenty years now, and I still can’t answer that question. But here’s what I do know: that I *do* make a difference. It’s just really difficult to articulate how because my job is to arm my students with the necessary writing skills they need as they go out into the world. Once they’re out there, I only know what’s going on when they check back in, and that only happens every so often.

Still, I say this: teaching is an act of faith. To me, it’s as much an act of faith as taking Communion on Sunday or observing Lent. It’s as much an act of faith as raising one’s child to be the best person he can be and hoping it’ll work out when he or she is twenty-two and living in another city.

How I make a difference, I think, is by believing this, by believing that I make a difference, however it is that I do it. *What* I do doesn’t make nearly the difference that my mindset and belief allows me to make. That’s where the power is, and it’s where and how I make my decisions–through my utter belief in that which I cannot articulate. Professional development? Yes, please. A conference that takes me away from my family? Yes, please. An MCLI workshop that forces me to drive an hour in rush-hour traffic in a direction I never go in? Yes, please. I accept these opportunities for professional growth because even though I don’t know specifically how I make a difference, I know, deep down, that I do. And that’s what keeps me moving forward semester after semester, year after year, even on the rare days that begin with inadvertent submersion of my elbow into a pile of waiting cat puke.