[This would be
the last week of classes, if the Spring 2020 semester had gone as scheduled. To
say that it didn’t is just to scratch the surface of this chaotic, crazy,
challenging spring, though. So for my usual semester recaps, this time I’ll
focus on brief tributes to those folks who helped us make it through this
incredibly tough time, leading up to a weekend post of my own reflections on
teaching in this new world.]
On the crucial
benefits of being in it together.
Longtime
AmericanStudies readers will be familiar with my colleague Kisha Tracy—from her great Guest
Post, and from the other
opportunities I’ve had to share and highlight her great
work. As I mention in that last post, Kisha and our History colleague Kate
Jewell co-directed for many years our FSU Center
for Teaching & Learning; although they have handed the reins over to
our Math colleague Sarah
Wright, Kisha has continued to serve as a vital teaching resource and mentor
to not just me but the entire FSU community. And she did so with particular
potency over the last few months, assembling and curating this amazing GoogleDoc on “Transitioning to Online Teaching During COVID-19.”
I mainly wanted
to write this post to thank Kisha publicly for all that work, and to share that
great resource, which will certainly continue to come in handy whatever our
teaching, universities, and society look like over the summer and into the
fall. But I also wanted to highlight this as an especially salient example of
solidarity, of how much better things like “converting all my face-to-face
classes to online/remote learning in a week mid-semester” go when we’re sharing
our resources, experiences, ideas, perspectives, challenges, and more. I think
a fair number of us (or at least this AmericanStudier) tend to approach things
too often in an iconoclastic way, and there are some sides to this profession
that are certainly individual and necessarily isolated. But as with most things
in this world, a significant percentage of our work goes best when we remember
that we’re in it together—and I don’t know anyone who models that principle
better than Kisha Tracy.
Next tribute
tomorrow,
Ben
PS. Reflections
or tributes of your own on Spring 2020?
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