• Home
  • About
  • Writing for Healing: Workshops & Classes
  • Additional Workshops & Classes
  • Resources

Writing Through Cancer

When life hurts, writing can help. Weekly writing prompts for those living with debilitating illness, pain or trauma.

Feeds:
« For the Week of August 21, 2014: The Different Worlds We Live In
For the Week of September 14, 2014: Kindness »

For the Week of September 7, 2014: Back to School

September 7, 2014 by Sharon Bray

My child and I hold hands on the way to school,
And when I leave him at the first-grade door
He cries a little but is brave; he does
Let go. My selfish tears remind me how
I cried before that door a life ago.
I may have had a hard time letting go.

(“September, The First Day of School,” by Howard Nemerov, from : Trying Conclusions:  New and Selected Poems 1961-1991)

 

It’s back to school in my family.  My grandson, packing his new knapsack the night before his first day of kindergarten, included the items he felt most important for this new beginning, his favorite action figures, a toy car, a plastic dinosaur, and three pre-school notebooks.  His mother posted on Facebook, “Tomorrow, it begins.”  I remembered her first day of school so many years ago, the tug at my heart as I stood at the door and waved (and waved) as she crossed the street, accompanied by her sister and the school crossing guard, knowing we had entered a new chapter of childhood and learning.

Now it was my daughter’s turn, accompanying her son to the bus stop and waving good-bye as he boarded the bus with the other children for the short ride to the American school on Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa.  If he was nervous, it was masked by his early morning announcement that he was invested with magical powers, necessary, I assume, to ward off any unforeseen difficulties he might encounter in his new school.  But all was well: he returned later in the day, most excited about being able to check out a library book on his own.

My husband returned to school too, working on Labor Day to deal with the administrative duties as chair of a doctoral studies program, and predictably, working late into the evening to prepare for his first class on Tuesday afternoon.  Today, a Sunday, he’s returned to his office at the university to catch up on work he was unable to complete during the week.  While many of our friends might be traveling or enjoying a relaxed day at the beach or on the golf course, he and I remain ensconced in the world of school, teaching and, despite our many years of doing so, learning a few new things whether we want to or not!

I still teach just as my husband does, despite the fact we both have moved past the official retirement age.  I do it because I love it, because I like to think it keeps me “young,” and because I am constantly exposed to new people, new ideas.  At least, that’s what I tell myself.  But this week I had to go back to school to learn how to use a new online teaching platform for my UCLA classes.  A few days in advance, I emailed the technical folks.

Would the seven and a half years of courses and content I’ve developed on “Blackboard” be transferred to the new platform, or at the very least, saved for my reference? 

I didn’t like the reply.

Unfortunately, no.  You should download and save your courses (syllabi, lectures, readings and other documents) in the next few weeks.  Blackboard will no longer be available.

I drove to Staples and purchased another flash drive and began the downloads.  I’m still not finished.  Meanwhile, my new online training began, and I logged into the site to acquaint myself with the new platform.

Of course, I got confused.  I’m fairly technologically adept, but to learn the new platform, I had to “unlearn” the old.  Worse, there were assignments to be completed, and each by a certain date.  I grumbled and on Tuesday afternoon, began the training and working on the first assignment.  Four long hours later, I finished—or thought I had—the week’s required tasks:  creating course content for the first week of the class I start teaching October.  Blurry-eyed but satisfied, I logged out and went back to my current class on Blackboard, where I had ten student submissions waiting for my critique.

Two days later, amid writing critique, hosting a student conference call, and meeting with my dentist to discuss the impending dental surgery scheduled for this week, I received an email from the administrator of the new online platform, notifying me I had not completed Assignment #1, which was now three days overdue!

“What?”  I logged in.  All my work was there.  Completed.  I fired back a frustrated email—one that has yet to be answered—complaining that I had finished the assignment and on time.  I mean really, I have always been a diligent student.  I have a doctorate, for heaven’s sake.  How dare they tell me I had not completed the assignment and on schedule?   A half hour later, I was embarrassed to discover I had to “send in” my assignment to the technical people by pressing the “submit” button.  Whoops.

I was face to face with my own inconsistencies against the beliefs I hold dear: in lifelong learning, the importance of creating new neural connections, staying mentally agile…you know the rest.  I was just as irritable and frustrated by something I hadn’t mastered as I suspect many of my students are with my “reminders” about their late assignments.  It’s good, I admitted to myself, to go back to school and be a beginner again from time to time.  It keeps me humble.  Real.  And learning.

Each fall the children must endure together
What every child also endures alone:
Learning the alphabet, the integers,
Three dozen bits and pieces of a stuff
So arbitrary, so peremptory,
That worlds invisible and visible

Bow down before it…

It’s funny to think about, but now that Nathan is in school, I know it won’t be long before he will be teaching me about this technological world I inhabit, he’ll surely be able to figure out a new online program or platform in a matter of minutes, while I struggle through the directions two and three times in less than successful attempts to figure things out.  But even if I’m slower at catching on to new things than I once was, I hope that as long as I am alive, I will keep “going back to school” and continue to find wonder, excitement, and new discoveries every day of my life.

But I’ll be honest, I hope that most of that new learning will happen with my computer turned off.

This week, write about a time you had to learn something new, whether in a course, using new technology, or even about yourself.  What’s it like to be a beginner at something again?

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments

6 Responses

  1. on September 8, 2014 at 10:31 pm | Reply Glenda Beall

    I taught children in my younger days, but teach writing for adults now. I love teaching and I love learning. Like you, the new technology frustrates me now, but I continue to meet the challenge and love it when I accomplish a new portion I’ve been struggling with for awhile. My nephews are amazed sometimes that a person of my generation administers two blogs and has a facebook page. I enjoy reading your blog.


    • on September 10, 2014 at 8:09 am | Reply Sharon Bray

      Thanks for your comments, Glenda!
      Sharon


  2. on September 8, 2014 at 7:52 pm | Reply Luanne

    Sharon, I noticed that you teach in the UCLA writing extension program. I’ve taken a zillion online writing courses (she wrote with embarrassment), but never any through the UCLA program. Whenever I’ve checked, the one I wanted was full. What do you think the strengths of the UCLA program are? Just curious to hear from someone on the faculty.


    • on September 10, 2014 at 8:20 am | Reply Sharon Bray

      Luanne,
      I just wrote a long reply–which vanished. I’ll try again. I’ve been teaching for the UCLA Writers’ Program for over seven years–creative nonfiction and transformational writing. Overall, I’m very impressed with 1) the caliber of the writing program instructors who teach, 2) the range of the courses–screenwriting, fiction, nonfiction, poetry and more, and 3) that many of the program classes are available online. UCLA also offers a certificate track and master classes in fiction writing (as well as a progression in creative nonfiction from beginning through advanced). Like any program, occasionally there’ll be an instructor who doesn’t seem as strong as others, but UCLA always asks for student reviews of the courses and instructors, and the majority are rated between 7.5 and 9 on a nine point scale.

      Thanks for reaching out–and thank you for your always interesting and thought provoking blog.
      Cheers,
      Sharon


      • on September 10, 2014 at 2:09 pm Luanne

        Thanks, Sharon! I’m almost done with Stanford’s certificate program and have an MFA, but I like to take classes here and there online. I will keep checking on what they have available!


  3. on September 7, 2014 at 8:20 pm | Reply

    You’re so interesting! I don’t believe I’ve read through anything like this
    before. So good to find someone with some unique thoughts on this topic.
    Really.. thank you for starting this up.
    This website is one thing that is needed on the internet, someone with a bit of originality!



Leave a Reply Cancel reply

  • Most recent postings

    • For the Week of October 12, 2014: What We Lose; What We Gain
    • For the Week of October 5, 2014: Metaphors of Cancer
    • For the Week of September 28, 2014: Paying Attention
  • Past 2013 writing prompts

Blog at WordPress.com.

The MistyLook Theme.


Follow

Powered by WordPress.com
%d bloggers like this: