Dr. Abigail Leigh Phillips

Tag: students

  • Why, no. I am not exactly resilient. That word is weird/conflicted. I’ll survive anyway.

    Why, no. I am not exactly resilient. That word is weird/conflicted. I’ll survive anyway.

    I’ve seen the words ‘resilient’, ‘resilience’, and ‘resiliency’ pop up again and again in conference presentations, scholarly papers, speeches, book titles, and within my professional community and others. It has become a highly praised attribute in the work force. From librarians (right now, during the pandemic) to students deal with also pandemic but also school stressors and anxieties. We are resilient or encouraged to be. To “bounce back” with speed. To work past it quickly and efficiently. Well, I can’t do that.

    Recovering from a trauma situation is a long process. In my experience anyway, but the words and phrases “quickly” and sayings “bounce back” and “suck it up” are repeated so often in what feels like almost every conceivable avenue. I keep wondering, why? Why isn’t recovery, growth, failure, and struggle also acknowledged and praised as strongly? Most importantly the last two.

    I couldn’t resist a bouncy castle/house image in this post. Courtesy of KXXV 25 News.

    I have never thought of myself as resilient especially now that I know what the expectations of “resiliency” actually are. I went to dictionaries. I love a definition. From Oxford English Dictionary (OED), resilient is “(adj.)….tending to recover quickly or easily from misfortune, shock, illness, or the like; buoyant, irrepressible; adaptable, robust, hardy..” (para. 3). Merriam Webster (2020, para. 1) (adj.)…describes the word similarly, “capable of withstanding shock without permanent deformation or ruptur; tending to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change”.

    I don’t know what to say about those definitions in general, but they are not me or anything I am capable doing of today or ever in recent memory. The resilient brings to mind someone strong. Someone who doesn’t take the often just plain awfulness of life too seriously. Someone who moves through life in stride. Maybe a bump or two, but gets back up and gets going.

    I do not believe that I am a ‘resilient person’ as I’ve read so often. Or I don’t think I am judging by the definitions and what has been written about resiliency (Scott, 2020). The School of Continuing Education in the university where I work is hosting an “Emotional Resiliency in Uncertain Times” workshop. (As a side note, I feel like most of my time is uncertain. Today, tomorrow, and on are more than a bit mysterious, as far as WTF I will feel or think or worry or cry about.). When I first read about this workshop, my gut instinct erupted as a question: “what’s wrong with being emotional when the world is on fire and dramatically spiraling downward or at least uncertain?” Answer: nothing.

    I’m still trying to understand the different terminology when it comes to resilience/resilient/resiliency. Each means something slightly different for the individual or at least from what I understand from the marginally varying definitions. For some reason, the word ‘resilient’ almost feels like a slap in the face, usually because the words “be” or ” I am” often come before it. The mildly aggressive attitude that I feel radiate from these statements does nothing to shake my unease with this label.

    Courtesy of Center for Creative Leadership

    I worked on this blog post for several weeks sporadically between other projects. I didn’t know how or when to end it. But then I found this image, and I thought, “I can do this.”. I’m sure that this graphic rings much truer for others than it does for me. But nothing about it does for me.

    The most striking is Number Three: find a substitute for sleep. As someone who has suffered from chronic insomnia as long as I can remember, there is no substitute for sleep. If I knew a substitute for sleep, I would have found it over 20 years ago. Who knew it had SO MUCH to do which resilience. Further evidence of my constant struggle with resilience. It’s just not wired into my brain because sleep. Also, positive thinking irritates the fuck out of me. This post now sounds more about what irritates me than actual substance, but at least I acknowledge that.

    Thank you and take care, my friend.

    References

    N.A. (2012). Building your resilience. American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/topics/resilience.

    N.A. (2020). Resilient, adjective. Merriam Webster Dictionary. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/resilient.

    OED Online. (2020). Resilient, adj. and n. Oxford University Press. https://www-oed-com.ezproxy.lib.uwm.edu/view/Entry/163621?redirectedFrom=resilient&

    Scott, E. 28 April 2020. Why emotional resilience Is a trait you can develop. Verywell Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/emotional-resilience-is-a-trait-you-can-develop-3145235.

  • What I Learned From Undergraduates

    Since my first semester of teaching undergraduates face to face ended two weeks ago, I’ve spent some time thinking about what I learned, liked, disliked, didn’t understand, found funny, etc. about the experience. There has been a lot to process, especially with another semester of undergraduate teaching not too far away. I’ve also talked with other doc students, friends, family, and colleagues about teaching in general. It’s curious to hear how other instructors, not matter what they’re teaching, interact with students, develop their teaching styles, and assess their own successes (and failures) as an instructor. Mostly I’ve been surprised by what I’ve learned!

    I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed teaching undergraduates this semester. I expected to like working with undergraduate since I’ve worked quite a bit with their age group as a librarian. Until this semester, my experience with teaching undergrads has been solely online, with no interaction outside of e-mail. In the face to face environment of the classroom, I get the same energy boost I got while working with teens in the public library. The enthusiasm and curiosity of undergrads is contagious and motivates me to perform better as a teacher.

    However, this energy boost also comes with an serious energy drain.I’ve been surprised  at how tiring, mentally and emotionally, teaching undergraduates can be. Whether it is the significant increase in e-mails or the self-doubt about my own abilities as a  teacher, this semester has been a bit more exhausting than others. To me, it feels as though undergraduates need significantly more, and with a greater intensity, from teachers than master’s students. It’s likely that the more experience I get teaching undergraduates over my career, the less draining I will find my teaching experience. At least I hope so.

    Another revelation from this semester has been that I can make a mistake or goof up as a teacher and it’s okay. Students (and fellow instructors) are surprisingly understanding and forgiving. Being a perfectionist, I have a tendency to blow up a small mishap and blow it up to the level of a catastrophe. For every mistake I’ve made over the course of this semester, I’ve discovered something about teaching and myself. For example, if a student feels that you have made a mistake in grading/attendance/participation, they will call you out on it. Repeatedly. Via e-mail. Yes.

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    Teaching Humor!