Just Be Happy About Your Progress

I have to laugh at myself this morning as I sit staring at my blank computer screen, thinking this must be what my students are talking about when they say they can’t think of anything to write about. I always think how can that be when I gave you the topic. I was given the topic of growth, yet I still can’t think of anything to write. Well, nothing beyond not being able to think of anything to write. I tell my students when this happens to just write and see what comes out. It may not be good and may not fit the assignment, but be happy about your progress. It’s something. Yeah, it’s working.

At what point do faculty stop growing? Is growth a continuing process? or do we at some point stop and say I’m good. Been there. Done that. I remember when I was younger, we would complain about the older faculty and how they never wanted to try new things or do anything. They would say, “oh we tried that already. It didn’t work.” Being the smart alec that I was, I always wanted to reply, “well, the 2000s are nothing like the 50’s so perhaps another try is in store?” Of course, I never said that. I also always wondered where half our faculty were. When you look around campus and take notice about who’s running things, it was always the same faculty in charge of things. When I first transferred to GCC, there were faculty in my department that I didn’t see for years and had never met. That’s just weird.

But as I start to finish up my 32nd year of teaching, I think I get it. I am starting to feel like we’ve done ALL this before, and to be honest I can’t remember if it worked or not or why we stopped doing certain things in the first place. It’s easy to just step back and let everyone else do all the work, hide out in my office (which is home right now) and do nothing and just be happy about my progress. I get it now.

Nah, that’s not for me. Growth takes progress. Progress is advancement and development through time, doing things, helping people, getting better at your craft, and finding new crafts. You never know where you’re going to end up, but you can guarantee you’ll end up somewhere if you just try, or in this case, just start writing. See, look at that. I have a blog post. Progress!