School has started at last. We are in the fourth week of classes and have already gotten well acquainted with my students. It has been a good beginning.
Today a student came by to ask about an assignment and I felt impressed to take her to lunch at the hospital cafeteria. She was thrilled. So we wandered off up the hill to the hospital and got our food, returned to my office, and chatted as we ate.
You can learn a lot about people when you eat with them, and when you take the time to talk to them. She laughed, told me about her many tears the first couple weeks of classes, and that she is finally optimistic that she can do the work. This student went to the same college that I attended as a kid, so I have tried to look out for her. When she was ready to leave for her statistics class I asked if I could pray for her. She was very happy that I did.
We had a statewide earthquake disaster drill today. It actually reminded me of the drills we used to have as school aged children during the Cold War: get under the desk--as if that would protect us from a nuclear blast! As I was teaching, an administrator came by and reminded me from the hall that it was time to "Duck, cover and hold." As everyone slid down under the long tables at which they were seated, my Canadian student looked from one person to the next, trying to figure out what was happening. She has never been in an earthquake before, so of course, the students who have experienced earthquakes took great delight in regaling her with the horrible sights and sounds when there is a major earthquake. She later told me that she expected to be on the first plane to Canada if we have a quake any time soon. Knock on wood...
That was in my four-hour morning research class. I have tried to get out of teaching it every year since it was assigned to me, but to no avail. The faculty like how I teach it but they have no idea of the amount of anxiety that it creates for me. I suppose that I need to just relax and settle into the coursework. I know a lot more about research than I think I do, but with the workload that I carry, I feel like I'm winging it most of the time. We'll see how the course evaluations come out at the end of the quarter.
Four hours is a long class period to fill. We usually take two 10-minute breaks so people can revive themselves before the next onslaught of information. Today was the first class that just flowed along by itself: a guest speaker for 30 minutes, question and answer for 20 minutes, group activity with discussion for 40 minutes, videos and discussion for 60 minutes, and lecture for the rest of the time. That anyone learns anything in there is always a surprise to me, even though they seem engaged. I wonder if I will ever feel that I know enough to teach these classes?
One of my students and I met with a neonatologist who wants to collaborate with us to create medical simulations involving "problem families" so her physicians in training can learn how to attune to patients. The patients will be acted out by my doctoral students, who will then evaluate the physicians on how well they attuned, enlisted, and empowered them. I think this should be a wonderful experience. My student and I have created a workshop out of our simulation idea and will be presenting this at a conference in New Orleans in January.
Then I rushed back to the office and picked up my CD with two posters on it that need to be printed off. Fortunately, the printing services office was still open and they got all the particulars for the poster. They will be done by Monday morning. These are posters that are for the purpose of sharing research or conceptual information at the National Council on Family Relations in Minneapolis in two weeks. One is about how medical family therapists work with patients and families who are awaiting organ transplantation. The other is the research findings from a project I did while I lived in Washington, about how family therapists interact with their own families, given their clinical and academic expertise on family life and relationships. It is a beautiful poster, but I am so energized about the content that I have been preoccupied with it for weeks. Hopefully, I can get it ready for publication in a family therapy journal.
Another task was going to another department on campus for the dissertation proposal meeting of a student on whose committee I am serving. It was a most interesting conversation, and an even more formal, stilted setting than I've ever been in before. The student had to introduce each of us and say a few words about us--even though most of us knew each other. But since I was on "foreign" territory, I just played along. There were three of us women on the committee and one man who is the statistical expert. He obviously had more say about what was to happen than any of the rest of us, given that he spelled out how he thought everything should be done. I couldn't have disagreed more and let him know, as diplomatically as possible, that there were more efficient and theoretically sound ways to obtain the findings that the student sought. That energized the other women and threw the conversation into a fury of idea generation. When I left an hour and a half later, the statistician had his shorts in a wad, the student was fearful that I was pulling out of her committee, the third committee member had left the room in a dour mood, and the Chair of the committee was trying to maintain some control of the enthusiastic suggestions that we made, talking over one another.
Well, they asked me for my expertise and I gave it. The research idea was one of the more cockeyed ideas I've heard in awhile. It just wasn't popular to point that out. But if I didn't (and I emphasize here, there were no ill feelings toward me in my words--I just upset their way of doing things), the student would produce a useless study and an awful dissertation.
So here I sit on the couch, having graded this week's batch of research papers. Students were told that they have to "position" themselves in terms of their own biases and life experiences that influence their objectivity in research. Ten out of sixteen students nailed it. Six were absolutely clueless and wrote these rambling stream-of-consciousness reflections that were not even close to what was required. Where were they when I explained and explained and explained this in class? I'm not sure.
School is in session. I love what I do. There is never a dull moment, and I so enjoy all that I get to do here. Never take your job for granted. Some people work very hard at jobs they hate, and they do it for 40 years. I am one of the lucky ones.
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