I come from stubborn stock \u2014 New Mexico ranchers, Pittsburgh ghetto-dwellers, descendants of Scotch-Irish immigrants all. My wife jokes that our kids are the stubborn children of two stubborn parents (Polish immigrants, on her side \u2014 different ethnic food, same harsh winters): stubbornness baked right in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So it\u2019s no surprise I endured the ramp-up to this term internally kicking and screaming. Constant masking; overhauling our courses to pivot online; stressing over Echo360\u2019s sound pick-up abilities; conforming syllabi to \u201cQuality Matters\u201d standards for remote learning: I have done it, but I\u2019ve whined and griped about it, even out loud as much as I could get away with, with propriety. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And now I see I was wrong. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It wasn\u2019t a genuine fault in QM I was complaining about, I now see. It was just my discomfort at being forced from my comfortable old way to someone else\u2019s new way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Come to think of it, this has happened to me before \u2014 this bitter complaint against forced change, leading to resignation, then acceptance and unexpected benefit. A few recent cases come to mind: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The push for allowing \u201cdistance learning,\u201d which at the time seemed dangerous, foolish and a selling-out of our educational ideals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The change from \u201cOld Pipeline\u201d to \u201cNew Pipeline,\u201d which seemed irrational, obtuse and \u201cunusable.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The inclusion of \u201clearning outcomes\u201d in every syllabus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
One more example \u2014 the removal of our family\u2019s cheese-grater from the left-hand kitchen cabinet to the \u201cmore convenient\u201d right-hand drawer \u2014 and I think I\u2019ve made my point. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Each time, I\u2019ve poured out tremendous energy rationalizing my hatred of the new way. But then the forced change happens, and our lives go on, and we realize the new way may even be (gasp) marginally helpful. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
None of this is to minimize the real and painful burden of having our world shaken, then upended, and all of us and our relationships and our work and time and focus and resources and money tossed about, rattled to pieces, or swept away. The traumas of this year, for most of us perhaps, defy words. And those hurt most may now be beyond our hearing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still, humbled and apologetically, I want to say thank you to the support staff and administrators who poured out so much work and care (while I was pouring out hissy-fit drama) to make it possible for Harding to reopen. You have given me the greatest gift a professor could receive: you\u2019ve made it possible for our students to rejoin us on Harding\u2019s campus. I was wrong to complain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even when I still bristle against some part of this weird new pandem-U, even when I find myself thinking, \u201cWho in their right mind would choose to make us do it that way?\u201d I want you to know it\u2019s not you, it\u2019s me. Stubbornness, baked right in. Someone had to step up and work out some way to do it, and then make it work. You did. And then \u2014 you did. (Even as I write, you\u2019re doubtless still doing.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We are all under stress, but those deserve special praise who serve where all the stress-lines converge: each administrator choking down the worried complaints of multiple departments or colleges, each staff providing coaching to hundreds of professors making thousands of courses online-capable all at once. Provost, deans, E-Learning: We appreciate you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As I write this, I feel like I\u2019ve suddenly taken in a big breath of fresh air and then given a big sigh of relief. The sleep-debt of the ramp-up is gradually being repaid. It\u2019s wonderful to see our students back. We\u2019re sort of getting through this. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I know we\u2019re not in the clear yet: personal illness, general outbreak, cycles of quarantines, or a sudden full-campus pivot may rock us yet again. No one knows; anything may happen. It feels like we are living on the raw front edge of history. And we\u2019re entering a political election cycle, amid layoffs and protests and an ongoing plague in the most ideologically-polarized time in memory. From our dorm rooms to churches to colleges academic and electoral, in the months ahead we\u2019ll need a high tolerance for having to do things someone else\u2019s way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There may be good reason to freak out, but I take hope from realizing that most of my anxiety and stress, leading into this semester, was misplaced: sheer whiny stubbornness, and no real threat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
God has placed eternity in our hearts, and though we may go kicking and screaming, life finds a way forward. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I am humbled and thankful to be here, now, with all the present moment\u2019s restrictions and difficulties, with people who daily earn my trust \u2014 with such faithful and hard-working colleagues \u2014 with such bright-eyed, eager students. God help us all. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I come from stubborn stock \u2014 New Mexico ranchers, Pittsburgh ghetto-dwellers, descendants of Scotch-Irish immigrants all. My wife jokes that our kids are the stubborn children of two stubborn parents…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15068,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15068"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14934"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14940,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14934\/revisions\/14940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}