community college

Today Is What It’s All About

/ Katie Winkler / Leave a comment

Yesterday, I was discouraged, but today is a new day. Why? I went to rehearsal of my college’s new play. We’re performing a stage version of the movie Clue that is based on the old sleuthing board game so many of us know and love. The movie has an all-star cast, including the late great Eileen Brennan, Tim Curry (of Rocky Horror Picture Show fame), the fabulous Madeline Kahn, Christopher Lloyd, Michael McKean, Martin Mull and Lesley Ann Warren.

At auditions, there were so many fine actors that our director, head of the drama department, decided to have understudies for some of the roles, include a “household staff” that will serve as entertainment between scenes and then get their shot at the big roles during two additional shows. Great idea, and it’s what directors who are primarily good educators at community colleges do–make their lives much more complicated for the sake of their students as well as the community members who are also significant stake holders in their college.

Today’s rehearsal reflects what community colleges are all about–play production students coming early and staying late to work on the set, more seasoned actors helping the newer ones, agreeing with the director without argument, offering suggestions, happy to have them accepted or not, the director’s quick and non-embarrassing corrections when new actors make mistakes, each actor creating a story for his or her character, an occasional harmless joke, the joys of physical humor leading to laughter and a true knowledge of an art form that only comes with actually getting up and doing it.

This is educational theater and the essence of what liberal arts is all about–following directions, creative problem-solving, collaborating and creating. I’m so glad to once again be a part of it.

Also, today–my positive day–I want to give a shout out to the colleagues, support staff, administrators and students who helped me so much during this past discouraging week. I complain sometimes, but I truly just want to make things better for my fellow instructors and my students, especially my students. Nevertheless, I want to find more time to praise the people I work with who also have the welfare of all of our students foremost in their minds. I also appreciate those students and friends who have reached out to me this week, offering me respect and encouragement. Thanks, guys–you know who you are.

It Matters

/ Katie Winkler / 1 Comment

Yes, dear student, it matters that you capitalize the personal pronoun “I” and that you use salutations in your e-mails. It matters that you refrain from keeping your cell phone on your desk and looking at it every few seconds during the lecture. It matters that you do not use the time I give you on the computer to write personal e-mails and post on facebook.

Yes, dear support staff member, it is important that you knock and ask permission to enter the room when I am conducting class, that you do not speak to me disrespectfully in front of my students when I question the timing of repairs on the classroom printer. It matters that you recognize the most important thing our college does is hold classes and that all classes are important, even, perhaps especially, developmental classes.

Yes, dear administrator, it matters that you allow me to explain my position before you summarily dismiss my request, that you do not raise your voice and speak to me in a derisive tone, but speak to me as a fellow educator, someone who has the best interest of students at heart.

Yes, dear me, it matters what you do, even when it isn’t acknowledged, even when you are treated unfairly, even though you aren’t perfect and make mistakes. What you do matters and it matters that you care so deeply. It matters

So Frustrated I Can’t Write Much, So I’ll Let Tom Hanks Speak for Me

/ Katie Winkler / Leave a comment

Today, I’m feeling once again minimized, like my efforts to educate people in my community, to try and instill in them not just skills but a love for learning and a desire to be a lifelong learner, to be a thinker, is seen by some people in power to be a waste of people’s time, that College Transfer Programs leading to four years degree are at best excessive and at worst wasteful.

So I come back to my office feeling a little depressed–go figure. Most people have gone home, but I have to type up a reading comprehension test for one of my classes tomorrow. I hate giving reading comprehension tests, but see, my students don’t read their assigned texts–as a whole they don’t do anything unless they get a grade for it. They don’t understand what it means to be educated and very few have any desire to be. I don’t blame them. They are products of a society that has people in power who seem to think that all education needs to be directly measurable, so they naturally do not understand what it means to read something because it will help them understand the material better, because it will help them write their papers better if they apply what they read. Oh no, if the reading does not have the price tag of a grade, then few students will do it. The idea of learning for learning’s sake is alien to them because it is alien to most of the people all around them, a product of the instant world to which they’ve become accustomed.

Anyway, so I haven’t started that quiz yet. Why? In my inbox was this wonderful article by Tom Hanks appearing in the New York Times that made me feel so much better. Did you know that Tom Hanks got a really good liberal arts education at a community college? Yep. So here it is: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/14/opinion/tom-hanks-on-his-two-years-at-chabot-college.html?emc=edit_ty_20150114&nl=opinion&nlid=69971608

Read it and then hear me saying, “What he said.” That’s my blog for today.