I have a bit of a commute from my home to my college where I teach. (Well, that’s a pretty severe understatement, actually. It’s far. Really far.) When I left work this afternoon to head home for the weekend, there was still no indication as to whether or not we would be returning the next week – meanwhile, colleges all over the country are scrambling to move to remote learning (as it’s being called).
Then I got home and checked my email – and there it was. We will be adding a week on to our spring break – so next week (when we should have had class) and the week after (our actual spring break) will be used by faculty to move their current face to face courses online. It wasn’t stated, but I’m assuming we will be online for the remainder of the semester.
I’m in shock. I’m feeling a great loss. While two of my classes are already online, and six credits of my load are my Teaching Chair duties, my creative writing poetry class is (was) in person. I’m a firm believer that creative writing classes need to be in person – there is a community aspect to it – you have to trust the people you are handing your work over to. Especially when you are doing it for the first time. I guess I can be glad they were able to have that community feel before this all went down.
But all that aside – I’m crushed that I didn’t get to say goodbye to my students. When we met this morning, I had no idea that this would likely be the last time we would all be sitting in a room together. I’m heart broken. If only this decision could have come even one day earlier.
Ami Maxine 