Embracing Identities

 This past academic week (Monday to Sunday) of my doctoral program included Cycle I coding for my pilot study. One of my participants spoke about her various social identities - her sexuality, her religion, and her disability status. Reviewing that data led me to reflect on parts of my identity that I have cast aside or at least put on hold because of my own perception of their incompatibility with this self-constructed concept of what I should be as an educator. I adopted beliefs and even methods of interacting that still feel fake to me. It's not that I like sincerity in how I care for students in my class. If anything, wanting to avoid conflict because of deeply ingrained thought patterns, I have been too polite in the classroom. It's a trait that was both frustrating and one I grew to care about less as the years went on. If I had been honest and equitable in grading all these years, far fewer would have received the grades they did. But, I'm moving beyond the point of this post. 

As I reflected on in a past course, I tend to go "all or nothing" when it comes to certain aspects of my life. I went through a playwright phase, a YouTuber phase, the actor phase - all of these overlapping but never fully committed to, with perhaps the exception of my community theater career, which I tried to move on from while also working in education for almost 25 years. I want to reconnect to my writer self that extends beyond creating class announcements, syllabi, and supportive emails to students who have fallen behind on expectations. While I never quite found an extensive audience or had my work mass produced, it's always been a big part of who I am, and I miss it. Yes, this is writing, as is all the work I do for my degree, but it's not the same. I haven't been excited to create. I have come to accept that despite having more experience as an actor, that came with a lot of stress I wasn't willing to admit I had. I will always adore actors and film, as well as live performance, but I don't see myself working in that environment. I can't say I didn't try, though. 

I still believe my career will revolve around communication, but I've been on a quest to figure out that lever. With all the teaching and learning involved in my current roles as both an educator and a student, I do my share of writing, so extracurricular posts like this feel challenging to compose. However, I made it a goal to do one of these per week. On average, I've met that goal thus far. I want to discover or perhaps rediscover my niche. I want to feel passion for my work again. 

I saw one of my former students the other day. He was surprised to see me because in his class I had made the great proclamation that I was leaving teaching in person to focus on becoming a faculty teaching consultant, an underdeveloped dream I did not pursue. Yet, at least. Since that semester, in the interim when I taught exclusively online, I explored potential avenues inspired by projects in my doctoral classes. But when the classes ended, so did those journeys. For now, at least.

The position I applied for has had its application priority deadline extended. I looked at higheredjobs.com again, and the only applicable position is essentially one I already hold. So, for now, I'm just maintaining the status quo for the next very busy eight weeks as I maintain these identities.