teaching

[Guest guest]

Dear Fred,

I have taught most of my adult life,, am 52, and will continue to do

so, god willing, as long as possible. I do teach at a college with 24

contact hours per week and 11 hours of committee work and office

hours etc.(and have manged to raise two great kids now 17 and 21)

and produce a pretty decent size portfolio of art and am now vice

president of the UFF, teachers union..elected on Fri.). Teaching is

the best, it for the most part makes me forget about my CMT.

I sit when lecturing to my classes in a round table format when

ever possible, and occassionally write on the board, but usually rely

on handouts and frequently write on the tables we sit at( I cover

them or have the students cover them with brown paper...this is our

chalk board..it doesn't take them long to learn to either come around

behind me or learn to read upside down.) I primarily teach design and

sculpture, I do stand for demos, and when helping students I commonly

ask to sit in their seats when correcting or helping with their

work.All and all it is a 50/50.

The biggest obstacle of late has been the fatigue element. Thought I

do think that anyone who teaches for six hours straight would be

exhausted too. It some times is like two one act one man plays... or

the number line at the deli counter.

There are days my legs are bad, and I move slow, and days when my hand muscles

are too weak to open locks or chisel stone or when my hands release and I drop

things... and there does come a time when I will confide in some students and

admit my situation and tell them about CMT.

This has been one of the harder things for me and something I have just started

to do this year-admit that I have a condition. That is hard for me, but it has

become necessary, and every time it gets alittle bit easier.I quess

it is cathartic, and helps me to accept it myself. I comnmonly come

home and sleep for an hour or so between four and five or five thirty.

My plan is to continue to keep teaching and creating as long as

possible...and due to my artist inclinations this will be 68 or so

(money being the issue, though this career is one that keep us you

feeling young) though I do for see a time when some type of

assistance for walking( and joke that I am going to get one of

those personal transportation scotter an IT I think and am going to

design hip walkers and Graves like canes and chairs for the

aging baby boomers.)

Humour is what gets me through these discussions, (my device for covering my

fears). But truth be told my students are wonderful, and I've learned to ask

them for help when I need it, this was and is hard, but their responses have

been wonderful and caring and I quess it makes this old professor more human and

vunerable- just like they feel, so in the end it has improved our

communications and understandings of each other.Oddly enough I think

it helps them to see that we all have obstacles to over come, but

that their dreams can come true, because mine have!

There may come a time when I will need a lab assistant, and I did

recently ask that a rail be installed in the lecture auditorium, so

that I could mange the steps to the slide/ projector room... though

on a bad day I'll ask for volunteers to mount those steps. Eventually

sculpture may be too physical and I'll turn to lecture and drawing

and painting classes... and writing when the hands fail. But my best

decision was to be a teacher, I love it, not at six o'clock in the

morning when Iam draggin' my---- out of bed, but once I get there the

day is great anfd my worries , pain, and all the rest of my personal

concerns get lost in the lives and creativity of my students.

Please don't get the idea that all is wonderful, there are days when

I come home and cry, because I can't do what i use to do or was

embarrassed trying to walk up the steps with people watching me or

was just tired and generally depressed,but in the end...

Do it Fred, teaching what you love is the best!