Okay this is what I’ve learnt about juggling in 2009.
I began this year – deluded…thinking that I could be a full-time mother, part-time student, writer and still make some inroads in my teaching career – I don’t teach writing or “how to be a mother”.
What I’ve found is this
- I can’t do it all well. I think I can handle motherhood + one other thing.
- It’s difficult segmenting the brain and switching on and off.
For example today. I’ve spent the morning doing the playgroup thing. Had a pleasant day. If I were a full-time mother, I’d probably spend the afternoon lazing around watching a bit of TV as Kid slept and then after he wakes go to the library or the shops. Have a look around. Amuse ourselves until dinner time. Dinner etc..
Or if I did one other thing e.g. study, I could do what I do and use the sleep time to get into my readings, polish up this thing I’m working on for my supervisor and take him over to mum and dad’s for the afternoon so I can get this one thing done – which needs to get done.
Instead, I’m thinking “arghhh what do I do????” I’ve managed to tell my parents I’m not coping and I need them to look after him this afternoon because I have to finish this piece of writing – but the thing is I also have to plan for tomorrow’s class and I’m really resenting it.
I think ideally, if one is a mother who wants to do something else, or a few things else, they should do two things that are related to each other in some way. Writing a post grad thesis and low level ESL teaching both involve language but very different types of language.
Also because I’ve chosen to work on something that is living and breathing in the ESL classroom, that’s kind of difficult as well. So I don’t have that sort of detachment…eg. Musing about Lyotard’s theory on the death of metanarrative and how experience/language have replaced grand narratives… I think yeah, but has Lyotard been in an ESL classroom full of non-English speaking migrants from diverse backgrounds, including a majority who have not had more than 3 years of education.
Are all views and narratives valid? No. Because how the fuck can I take some woman who thinks it’s okay to get a group of students together and beat their teacher to death in their country’s views seriously? My view is right, and hers is wrong. I’m so over cultural relativism. Some people take these abstractions to the extremes…okay and I know that this isn’t an example that comes up in my readings because these theorists are clever enough to not have to take on low level ESL teaching jobs.
And when there is no white centre from which one can work around, people still resort to colonialist narratives – and I have to perform some weirdo butch/whitey role where I play the role of colonialist, privilege monolingualism – just so I can get some control of the classroom. I mean this comes naturally to some of my colleagues from my ethnic background, but I’m a sleep deprived mother /student who just can’t be bothered performing any other roles.
I’m tetchy and I’m getting really sick of a lot of what I’m reading.
Terry Eagleton’s “After Theory” is providing some relief.
I have 8 weeks to go.
Follow up to the nasty incident with asshole students is that my workplace now has a “Cultural Awarness” taskforce. But it sounds like a load of bullshit and token because of the resistance to “values” education. What these people don’t realise is that it’s all ideological. The choice to stick to the “rational/objective teaching of language as a science” – yeah like that’s really helped people achieve native speaker fluency and the choice not to teach it is also ideological.
You see, if I wasn’t studying – I wouldn’t be switched onto these things. I probably could just go and deliver the program, take the pay and go home.
God…just 8 weeks to go….
I think I need to get away from work because I am confronted with the very issues I can’t be bothered dealing with at the moment – or the issues that I always deal with, and am happy to within the comforts of my home, in academia or in discussion with friends.
