TRANSFORMATION

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.

Lao Tzu 

Tao teaches us that Life is constantly renewed yet is ever the same.  All things, positive and negative, must end, and out of that ending comes new growth.

Ever mindful of this looming change, I began preparing this final blog entry some months ago.

On December 1st, 2014, I said goodbye to my life in the classroom.  Five years ago, I briefly considered the question, "If today were the day you had to stop teaching ..." and my response was simple, plain and wrenchingly heartfelt.

But on December 1st, as my IASC 2F00 students fêted me with cake and a gift set of wine, I knew that it would not be as difficult as I once thought to walk away.  And walk away I did.

It was an odd last day.  I did not sleep well the night before, because the finality of closing the door on a 35-year career the following day at 11:00 a.m. was monumental.  Of course, I told myself, it is not really retirement ...yet ...I was going into a 6-month administrative leave that I had deferred, I was still employed, I still had my identity as "Professor Joe."

But as I looked out onto the faces of that class, each one smiling, brimming with optimism and anticipation of a future, each one confident, I knew that they were better prepared than many university students to face a cynical, hard world.  I knew that I had made a small contribution to that preparation. And I was turning their care over to a young, accomplished colleague in whom I had confidence.

A former student and friend from several years ago walked through the door with her husband, a faculty colleague, and the celebration was on.

90 minutes later ... and I left the classroom for the very last time.  I shall never return as a teacher.  My work is done.

Christmas intervened, with all of the bustle and activities that holiday entails.  January brought the responsibility of my admin leave project with it, so I focused on that, while reveling in the luxury of afternoon naps.

Jill, my friend and collaborator in things pedagogical (and now the Director of the Centre for Pedagogical Innovation) had invited me in the Fall to offer The Last Lecture the following April.  We had established this tradition two years earlier when two of our 3M Fellows were retiring and now it was my turn to speak.

As I reflected on 35 years of teaching, I came upon the theme of Transformation and what it meant to me and my students.  The words and structure simply flowed; I mind-mapped the talk before writing and both processes were almost automatic as the talk took shape in outline form, then in discursive prose. 

There was a surprise in store for me after I had delivered The Last Lecture this past April 28.  My husband and the CPI had arranged a retirement "ambush" for me and I learned about it as I was taking my seat after my talk.  Former students took time out of their work day to attend  Two current students showed up, which I found very touching.  Many colleagues attended.  Staff popped in.  The kind and generous words of everyone at the event were overwhelming, and it was hard for me to connect these comments to me and to what I have always thought of as my minimal impact.

My work at the university, in the classroom is now over.  My words no longer have an audience.

As I have done with all of my students, past and present, I now ask myself the Big Question:

So Barry, you have completed a 35-year career at Brock University ... So What?  What does it mean?

I will let you all know ...

Farewell.

Almost home ...

Another September.  You can feel the wind changing, smell the leaves starting to dry out.  The academic cycle starts anew and this year, I am sadly aware that my time within the Grove is drawing to a close.

Soon, too soon, the trees will weave that uncanny robe of yellows and browns, oranges and scarlet, with smoky green peeking out as the supporting warp threads.

And before I know it, it will be time to say goodbye.  

 I will have served my students and my university for 34 chronological years.  I arrived on campus in August of 1980, as a youthful, frisch gebackener Doktor from Toronto.  This silver-haired chap with the slight limp and stooped posture now searches with quiet unease for that robust, energetic young Ph.D. with the jet black hair  ... and Walther von der Vogelweide whispers in my ear: 

Owê war sint verswunden alliu mîniu jâr
Alas, where have all my years vanished?

ist mir mîn leben getroumet oder ist ez wâr.

Has my life been merely a dream or is it real?

The learners still excite me and the classroom still gives me life, but I grow weary more quickly now.  The residual glow of teaching evaporates faster than it used to, and I find myself getting lost in deeper, more fundamental thoughts of self and family.

There is a life for me beyond a career.  And there are young lives struggling to find a career, as long as I insist on clinging to a familiar position at the university.  At 64, I am still discussing video game theory with 20-somethings.  And that is surely just wrong.

Time to make way for someone closer in age to the learners, someone who has more credibility.

Have I affected teaching and learning at Brock?  Have I helped learners transform their world view?  Perhaps, perhaps not ... but once I have retired, will it really matter?  I meet younger colleagues on campus who express surprise: "Oh, you're still here!  I thought you had retired!" 

Some put great store in the word "legacy" and all that they believe it to purport.  With dignity and pride, I stand by my belief that legacy is like so many footprints in water.  When I do retire and it happens to be a Friday, I fully expect that on Monday, some young wag will venture, "Barry who?"  And that is how it must be.

I have done my job, and done it well; but I have been paid to do that job, and been paid well.

Draw a line under those columns.  There is nothing owing in either column of the ledger. 

I will take a final bow, gracefully, and with dignity. 

Time to go home.
I can feel it.  It is right.

Slowing it down ...

I am engaging with gradual disengagement as a way of coping with my eventual retirement from active employment.

When I awaken that first morning after I walk away from Brock for the last time, I do not want to be flooded with a sense of loss or feel a sudden vast void in my life.

 I want to choose how and when I gradually give up activities, on my terms and on my schedule, with fond lingering memories gently stirred in the process, with intentional, deliberate surrender because it is time.

Gradually stepping back from the whirr of one's daily activity, gradually slowing down the frantic pace of living, easing into semi-ease ...

My fascination with fountain pens, inks and fine papers is I am certain an antecedent of my disengagement from the modern hurly-burly. This mania is well known amongst my intimates.  Indeed, it is often the subject of gentle jibing:  "Barry was late this morning because he was inking his pens!" [followed by sympathetic "awww!  isn't that cute?" kinds of noises]

In a world in which speed and efficiency are privileged, practices that I myself prize in professional circumstances, my use of fountain pen and ink helps me to slow down my thoughts as I commit them to paper, forces me to think about what I shall write, and even more important, reminds me that the selection of the words themselves and the interplay -- sound and shape --amongst them is the creation of beauty, an act that ought never to be taken lightly.

Recently I have resumed a habit that, like pen and ink, is a deliberate act re-discovering small pleasures in activities that have been flattened by the routine and need for speed of modern daily life.

I have returned to wet shaving, with brush, mug and double-edged safety razor.  And I love it.

What a pleasure to find that there is a counter-culture out there that, like me, delights in elevating an act of daily routine to one of slow ritualistic enjoyment.

So What?

My best advice to recent Brock graduates ...

Keep asking THAT question ....

So what, indeed?

When did I become useless?

I will turn 64 on my next birthday, just 2 weeks away.  As is required, I have given plenty of notice that I shall retire from full-time employment on my 66th birthday, in two years from now. There are but 6 weeks remaining in my current administrative position. In July, I shall return to my responsibilities as an Associate Professor of Digital Humanities and Communication Studies.

Since I arrived at Brock in August of 1980, fresh Ph.D. in hand, I have served the students of the university, and the university itself.

So when did I become superfluous to the Academy?  At what point did "senior colleague" tip over into "senior citizen," with its attendant cultural associations of over the hill, past prime, slow, helpless, in the way, a bother -- useless to my department and to my colleagues?

The signs have been creeping in all around me.  But it wasn't until I was talking to other senior colleagues did those individual signs start to fall into place and I began to see an unpleasant picture of my Grove, my Academe.

"I feel irrelevant in my own department" was the declaration of a colleague that resonated with frightening clarity within my being.  It was spoken by a man whom I respect as an academic, as a teacher, and as a colleague for his achievements and his wisdom, as well as his humour and sensible advice.  We sat in my office, discussing his struggle with the idea of retirement after 41 years of dedicated, selfless, and often unacknowledged service to our university.  He is a 3M Teaching Fellow, recognized as one of the best university teachers in Canada.  Yet he was voicing aloud the same misgivings I myself had been feeling for at least a year now.   

I have observed that, as I grow older, I have become more sensitive to behaviours and vocabulary choices of people around me.  I think of it as my mature life experience automatically filtering and routing stimuli to my brain for processing through a lens vibrantly polished by 64 years of application.

I am acutely aware of that sensitivity, so I find myself frequently second guessing my reactions --

Aren't you just over-reacting?  Would they really cut you out of the discussions intentionally?
Are you sure that was a dig and not an attempt at humour?  Did your suggestion really require a response?

But with increasing and alarming frequency, I find that I cannot help but conclude that I am in fact misreading neither the words nor the actions, that in fact there is a dismissive attitude towards older colleagues that is evident within segments of the university.  I get the unmistakable impression that I have passed my "best before" date and have already been consigned to the compost heap.

Confronting those involved invariably results in a hurried apology, "I'm sorry, in my haste to get [name task] done, I just went ahead.  You should have been consulted."  And with that wee bandage affixed, healing and forgiveness will no doubt follow, and off the person goes until the next time.

There are days when I rise up against this attitudinal shift, when I rail and feel feisty enough to push back.

But lately, I have been noticing that there are more days when I  feel that the swell is too great to crest, and my fatigue draws me down silently, beneath the dark rolling wave of indignity.

A Christmas Treasure

“It came without ribbons! It came without tags!”
“It came without packages, boxes or bags!”
 
Before the gifts had been unwrapped, before the mince tarts and the turkey and the gravy had been set upon the already groaning table, before a single Christmas cracker had been snapped, I had already celebrated the spirit of the feast.

It was a message of humanity and caritas, thanks and optimism, care and compassion, wrapped simply but carefully in plain e-mail text on December 21.

Former student Chris wanted to let me know that he had found employment, and even better, employment in the field he most desired.  He prefaced his good news with some context, to help the aging prof recognize who was writing.  Chris could not know that this was a young man whose contribution to my class was as unforgettable as it was inspirational.  I knew exactly who he was, and I could recall vividly the defining moment he distinguished himself in my class.

Chris told me how he thought about our class in computer-mediated communication, instigated by some recent funding for a new computer at his workplace and the implications that digital social networks, as well as "cheap pay-as-you-go cellphones" could have on his otherwise marginalized clientele.   It was a totally new perspective on computer-mediated communication, a view that I had not previously considered and I was so deeply grateful that Chris had shared this with me. 

Each year, I tell my students that the "So what?" reflection that each of them must include in their final project is the most important part of the exercise.  "So what?" is the ultimate expression of learning outcomes -- "I have created a video/built a game level/written a paper about plagiarism -- so what?  How does this project relate to my life as a human being within a digital world, and how does it relate to discussions/debate that we have had in class on so many topics?"  In other words, what have I learned in my discussion with others, in my reading, in my personal reflection?

Chris had just articulated in a few well-crafted sentences of his e-mail the ultimate "So what?" with clarity, passion, and humility.  He wrote that he is still inspired by our class of 2009, and I replied to tell him how inspired I was by his e-mail.  And that is what learning is, to my mind; a mutually inspirational exchange of ideas.  The roles of teacher and learner are seamlessly interchangeable.  Chris understands this too, for he closes his note (with a wee bit of sarcasm about my appointment as Director of the CTLET!), "I hope you're enjoying your new cushy gig while still inspiring (and being inspired by) all the students that grace your presence."

I closed the e-mail, bursting with pride for his accomplishments and for his sustained reflection on his learning and how it relates to real life.  And it does not get any more real than in the job he is doing, believe me. 

So thank you Chris, for a remarkable, unforgettable Christmas treasure.   I am forever indebted to you.  You have taught me something that I must now pass on to next year's students, so you will have taught them as well.

Treasures such as this are surely the reason I love teaching and the reason I love learning.


By the way, Chris:  Your PS was "Update your blog!"  Thanks for the inspiration.

Where have you been?

I know it has been almost a year of waiting for my inner blogger to re-awaken.  But it has been a very full interval indeed.

I am changed by that interval, and must say that it is a welcome, comforting change.

Potential has become plan, 'may be" has become "will be," and "if" has become "when" as decisions solidify desires.

Atumn is my season, the time of year when I retreat more deliberately into myself and reflect.  As the Niagara Grape and Wine Festival enlivens the downtown core, I sit on the porch, sipping my strong tea and observing the leaves begin their gradual transition to scarlet and gold.  The Kyrie  from Tomás Luis Victoria's Missa pro Defunctis lifts me on the ethereal beauty of its stunning polyphony.  And I  ponder my life, now in its autumnal stages.

Has it been good?  Has it been well-lived?  Has it been charitable?

Another sip of tea, I close my eyes and I am carried away by the majestic intertwining of plainsong and chorus, as the Westminster Cathedral Choir intones the Agnus Dei.

Their Gift

It has happened again this term.  It wasn't quite when I had anticipated it, rather late in fact. Nevertheless, my students have once again this year presented me with a priceless gift.

Yesterday, as our conversation worked its way into a comfortable groove, the atmosphere suddenly began to crackle.  With every point/counterpoint, I witnessed a gradual elevation of the discussion into scholarly argument, one that had started connecting the dots from articles we had discussed earlier in the term to the current article by Pierre Lévy on Collective Intelligence. 

Then one student shared a story that narrated a modern day experience of Plato's Cave, a precise mirror ... and suddenly it clicked.  The class got it.  They got the whole idea of the questions the fuel our discussions, they got the point of postulating possibility, the point of contemplating the impossible.

My skin erupted spontaneously into goosebumps of salute as my students continued their debate, transforming before my eyes from my students to my colleagues in the learning community.

It was the moment of trust about which I have written previously, a veritable emotional and intellectual crucible through which they pass and emerge renewed, strengthened, transformed.

After 30 years of teaching, one might expect a certain nonchalance about "one more" moment like this.  But I never cease to marvel at how incredibly proud and emotional I feel each and every time I witness the transformation. 

What a precious gift ... what amazing students.

September ... Again

September ... and the university cycle begins anew.

My inner clock reminds me that it is once again time to revise my course outline. Check the syllabus for a consistent path to learning outcomes. Review the reading list ... and as I find familiar passages in provocative readings, the corners of my mouth smile in anticipation of debates yet to come.

However, this year it feels different.

This year, I can see the end of my journey, the culmination of my teaching career.  It is as if I were at the end of the magnificent corridor of plane trees on the Neckarinsel in Tübingen, and a brilliantly lit clearing, where the Allee ends, beckons to me.

I have much to accomplish, wonderful heady challenges as I wander along that magical path between the majestic stand of trees.  But I will reach that clearing in four short years, and I am both excited and saddened.  I alternate between "Walk faster!  You're almost there!" and "Slow down!  Savour the smell of autumn leaves!  Linger along the sun dappled path for just a bit longer..."


Herbsttag, my favourite bit of Rilke that is ripe with the melancholy of ontological realization and cathartic resignation, has a new and an especially intimate meaning for me this year.

  Herr: es ist Zeit. Der Sommer war sehr groß.
  Leg deinen Schatten auf die Sonnenuhren,
  und auf den Fluren laß die Winde los.
  
  Befiehl den letzten Früchten voll zu sein;
  gieb ihnen noch zwei südlichere Tage,
  dränge sie zur Vollendung hin und jage
  die letzte Süße in den schweren Wein.
  
  Wer jetzt kein Haus hat, baut sich keines mehr.
  Wer jetzt allein ist, wird es lange bleiben,
  wird wachen, lesen, lange Briefe schreiben
  und wird in den Alleen hin und her
  unruhig wandern, wenn die Blätter treiben. 

Opening new doors ...

On August 1, I walk through a new door.   

In fact, it is a familiar portal, for I have been here before, yet at the same time I do not quite know where it leads this time.

I have accepted the position of Director of the Brock University Centre for Teaching, Learning and Educational Technologies.  This was the post that I held once before, from 1998-2003.  

Embracing the new means surrendering something of the old, closing one door to open another.

It is therefore with great regret that I must give up my full-time teaching appointment in Interactive Arts and Science, effective August 1, 2010 in order to discharge my responsibilities in teaching and learning on a full-time basis to the broader university community.

I am champing at the bit to engage the challenges of my new responsibilities, particularly in helping structure an institutional e-learning plan with a focus on pedagogical innovation.

At the same time, I leave the IASC classroom with great reluctance, but with wonderfully fond memories of my students and our invigorating, robust conversations about interactive digital media and life inside the digital bubble.

Small pleasures

Small pleasures add welcome piquancy to my routine, the way a tray of aromatic chutneys and hot lime pickle kicks up the flavours of a well-prepared bhoona beef, as a perfect background complement.

My latest little discovery has been at Lee Valley, a gardener's paradise. In their catalogue, I stumbled by wonderful accident upon an artful little tin of bronze book darts that point with understated dignity to the line one wishes to distinguish on any book page.

The tin is lined with a royal blue plush cushion and contains 50 bronze darts, each wafer thin, anxiously awaiting deployment for my referential pleasure.

What a delightful find!

Some will read this and scoff, "Get a life!"  Yet others, I would hope, will read this and murmur, "What a life!" 

Small pleasures, to be sure.

Empowering Power

I am reading an important book on critical pedagogy, When Students Have Power  by Ira Shor, and one line early on in the work resonates so strongly with me.  When Shor refers to democratizing the power structures inherent in the traditional classroom, he proclaims:

"The power that uses power to share and transform power is the power that I am seeking."

This is the classroom activism that I embrace, a politicized pedagogy of equality and liberated knowledge. 

Their names ...

My memory is not what it used to be.  At 61, how can I expect it to be that of an 18-year old?  How cruel is Nature to give me a life so rich and then gradually restrict my access to its records in my dotage ...

Fortunately, there are important moments from the past 30 years that I yet recall,  moments when I witnessed the spark take hold in the eyes of students, moments when I knew the bonfire had been lit.

I write this entry now so those moments can never be taken from me by synaptic failure.

To these students, whose names I still recall, I express my deepest and most heartfelt appreciation for allowing me to be part of that learning, that moment of awakening.  They have provided me with immeasurable insight into what it means to be a teacher/learner and that is a source of infinite joy.

There are so many more, who are just as significant but whose names have been taken from me by the cold collusion of chronology and biology.  To these students, I apologize but assure them that their effect on me has been as permanent as my memory is impermanent.

And so, wherever they are today, I speak these names, still within my recall, with all of the respect, admiration, and gratitude that constantly informs my teaching:


Doug DiPasquale

Tanya Laughren

Kyla Redden
Sarah Carruthers (now Wells)
Tim Lacey
Danny Pilon
Ryan Maitland
Robbie Vize
Dave De Santis
Matt Voynovich
Cedric de Jager
Laura Thomson (now Scoufaris)
Adam Smith
Stephen MacKinnon
Matt W. Clare
Bryan LaPlante
Chris Hannah from Glasgow (for Gorillaz)
Steve Dixon
Brandon Cleary
Christie Adams
Michelle Chan
Jason Chow
Chris Vandenberg
Mike Brousseau
Andrea Winter
Johannes Bittner
Vicky McArthur
 And then there are those who are still my students and their names will appear here after their graduation.

I am so deeply indebted to each and every one of them for teaching me how to be a better teacher.

Gardens

Now that classes are over and grades are in, I can focus a bit more on getting the last bits cleaned up in the garden.  It is always a surprise to see early blooms that we had forgotten about, and always a welcome pleasure to get those first fragrant whiffs of lilac that just whisper Spring.

Classes are so much like gardens, I find.  Some classes you simply know will grow and blossom just about as you might hope: buds push up and grow tall and straight.

And then there are classes like the ones I had this year that grew in their own ways, their stems sometimes leaning, sometimes curling, not at all what I had expected.

But on that last day of class, there it was:  a garden of absolutely unique blooms, some with subdued colours, others with colour so vibrant they could barely contain themselves, some that looked as if they were plants from another planet, and others that were easily identified. They had, each and every one, found their own shape and purpose in that class, each one beautiful, each one exceptional.

And so, even with thirty years of university teaching experience, I still have to remind myself:

Your expectations are your expectations. 

Trust the students.
Nurture them and they will flourish.