A quick post about the effort of teaching. Since July 21st I’ve taught two back-to-back university field courses at the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre, one a 6-week intro to science for non-science students—Science and the Sea—the other a 3.5-week seaweeds course for the BMSC Fall Program semester. I’m grateful to have worked with amazing students this year:
With a little over two weeks left on Seaweeds, I’m ready to drop dead from exhaustion. But also joy. You know the feeling? Giving everything you’ve got for a project you love…but it’s still everything you’ve got. I barely sleep, 3–4 hours on many nights. I allow myself a cursory glance at sunrises, sunsets, full moons and the like, but a pause in stride costs lecture prep. My phone broke six weeks ago, no time to deal with it. Shoes too. Also pants—I’m not killin’ it in the personal-upkeep department right now.
And that’s while teaching—I’m not talking about the easily-couple-hundred hours prep I put in over June and July before either course started. I’m not inefficient, I’m not inexperienced: teaching is hard work. Really hard. And I’m not doing this alone, I’m lucky to have two amazing teaching assistants and the BMSC staff run themselves ragged to keep this place humming. The behind-the-scenes slog that is crafting the learning experiences you see on Twitter and Instagram doesn’t get the attention it deserves, but it’s there.
It’s from this perspective I watch with ever-growing bewilderment, frustration and disgust as our B.C. Provincial Government continues to treat teachers like an enemy to be defeated at all costs during this prolonged teacher’s strike. I know many teachers and how hard they work—much harder than me and over the whole year too. To have that effort and concern for students treated in this way, to be paid the lowest of teachers in Canada and yet have the largest class sizes…I can’t imagine how enraging, demoralizing and downright stressful this situation is for them, especially now that the strike has substantially disrupted the school year. Beyond making my opinion known to my MLA and signing various petitions, I feel powerless to help end the strike.
Argh. I guess I’m just tired so this has become a bit of a rant. Point is: the vast majority of teachers work very hard and hold students’ learning as their top priority. But they can’t teach on elbow-grease alone—they need support in terms of learning materials, reasonable class size, support to address special needs of students: pretty basic but fundamental stuff.
I feel grateful to have these basic needs met while teaching at BMSC, meaning I’m able to create great teaching experiences with students that validate all my effort. But don’t get me wrong, I still have moments where I want to ditch this whole thing and kayak off into the sunset. Teaching is really hard. So go find a teacher you know and thank them, and if you’re in British Columbia, go find a teacher and ask them what you can do to help.
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