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What You Don’t Know About Teachers
Reflections on 21 months of pandemic teaching
Dear Students,
Today, I did some math, and I realized that since I started teaching when I was 21, I have taught about 3,580 of you — mostly undergraduates, some adult teachers, and some high school students. This means I have worked with you when you were 18 and during one of the most liminal times in your life.
Liminal — the threshold or occupying both sides of a boundary or the middle stage of a ritual. Crossing from one home to the next, moving to a scary and, at times, very isolating city. Going to parties, taking organic chemistry, fighting with your roommates, missing your parents, not missing your parents, coming out, transitioning, figuring out a major, learning how to feed yourself, taking the subway, and finding a therapist, friends, apartments, community, and maybe parts of yourself.
As you have been 18 or 19 with me, I have aged from 21 to 49. I don’t always love this. Aging is hard. Having an aging, disabled, female body in front of all of you is harder still. Being a meat sack in space and time.
Dressing for class has always been a challenge for me. What’s appropriate? What do I want to wear? What’s comfortable? What makes me feel good? Post-pandemic this is even harder. Nothing fits as it…
