I had 10 minutes.
To make it to my next class that’s a seven minute walk across campus.
To collect this pile of papers on my teacher’s desk because I rely on handouts so much that it takes a flurry of shuffling and paper clips after class to get things into or the kind of order necessary to even fit inside my bag.
To erase the board that’s filled, edge-to-edge, with class comments about the play Hamlet.
To thank my colleague from kinesiology who not only sat in on today’s class but brought with him a medical company skull for our performance of Act 5 Scene 1 (“Alas, poor Yorick!”) and actually read lines as the gravedigger.
And there they were, standing in front of me, two students with real questions about the play. One wanted to know more about Ophelia. Why did we keep calling it a suicide? Wasn’t it an accidental death? One wanted to discuss the “To be or not to be” soliloquy in more detail. She had always read the speech as referring to two responses to internal struggles.
And despite the fact that I had talked on Tuesday about listening and responding…
I was short and curt with my students in my haste to get out the door.
In reality, I wanted to sit and talk with my colleague for as long as I could about what worked and didn’t work in the class. The questions my students asked demanded more from me and asked for answers I couldn’t provide in 30 seconds. So
I had the chance to apologize later, which I’m grateful for. I want students to want to talk with me after class, especially after a class like that one.
Maybe that means coming to my office and discussing the question there. Maybe it means admitting I don’t have answers to the questions they have.
I know that it definitely means I need to listen, to wait, to be patient.