This is how my Italian teacher pronounces the word
‘homework’ when he isn’t using the Italian word (compiti).
HO-me-work
This pronunciation makes sense, because Italian puts some
kind of stress on every vowel in a word.
Even when the word is something like ‘sense,’ there would be a slight
‘eh’ uttered at the end of it by an Italian speaker.
SENS-eh
I’ve struggled all day with news from abroad. Struggled to stay on task, to make SENS-eh of it all. To keep a brave face when encountering my
empathetic Italian teacher, my cagey vegetable vendor, my sweet chicken man…who
all pointedly asked if I was happy today.
Of course, they asked that question with complete
bewilderment.
I’m reaching the stage where I have to push all of my own
bewilderment aside, because I have HO-me-work to do.
I have Italian HO-me-work.
Conjugations. Indefinite
articles. Gendered everything.
I have teacher-stuff HO-me-work, too.
I have been a fortunate person this first Fall in Rome: I have been able to continue teaching –
online - on a part-time basis for my ‘home’ institution, and also teaching
on-ground for a couple of new institutions.
In the coming weeks, I’ll probably talk more about those
opportunities (which just yesterday included the leading of a small group
through the Vatican museums and St. Peter’s – complete with the mic and the
headphones), but my mind is currently focused on preparation.
“I’m teaching four classes this term,” a professor might say
to a colleague, “with two preps.”
Every teaching term is different for professors – and also
for many k-12 teachers – in that their assignments may or may not be things
they’ve taught before. If a course is,
shall we say, ‘in the can,’ then there is far less preparation needed to walk
in every day and run the class. If we
classify it as a ‘prep,’ then it’s new to us.
And the preps require a lot of work that no one sees us performing.
Granted, some of us are always tweaking things a bit or a
lot, so in some cases, there is less distinction between the two types of courses. And even if you’ve taught something once or
twice before and you care a lot about the work you’re doing (including
students’ learning objectives and how they meet them), you can update
activities or information for the third iteration. I always feel that my third iteration of a
given course is my best one. Basic
mastery with appropriate embellishment.
Kinks worked out. Timing honed to
a razor sharp point. When it’s good like that, it’s really, really good.
When I interviewed for the opportunity, I stressed my years
of experience in study abroad and the teaching of art and architecture of
Rome. If I drew a circle around each
concept as it pertains to me– study abroad and teaching art and architecture of
Rome – they would overlap quite a bit.
And yet, this new opportunity came with some fresh challenges: it is a true semester in length. In one city.
A city about which I have learned much at the feet of great
instructors. A city about which I have
taught a great deal over twenty years’ time.
A city in which I now live.
I love challenges like these. I love them because they stretch me in ways I
want to grow. They force me to expand my
knowledge beyond what it currently is, and I’m convinced that while this place
can wear out the body, it is great material for my mind.
I landed this particular class in Rome at a very late date. I had to hit the ground running – literally and figuratively. I have been engaged in some serious HO-me-work for the
last several weeks. Learning about new places. Studying maps.
Sometimes visiting sites in advance of the class to learn more about
them before I was there with the students – because I have this penchant for
feeling prepared.
I was excited and a little nervous to begin my new gig
here. New faces. New policies.
Teaching in a different location - or multiple locations! - every single day. Navigating the terrain of the city and the
monuments, churches, and museums. What's my mass transit plan for today? Oh,
and did I mention the existing language barrier, or the regulations for tour
guides? How about different entry policies and/or prices for every place we've scheduled to
visit?
But technically speaking, I’m pretty secure in my content
preparation. It is born of years of
school and HO-me-work I’ve completed for teaching previous courses. I did not get this job on a total fluke, or
because someone wanted to upset the current state of affairs by hiring a
completely inexperienced person. And
when the job throws me curveballs (and it has, it has...because every job worth doing does that), I am expected to simply
handle them without losing my composure.
I cannot imagine being thrust into one of the toughest jobs
in the free world without a comparable amount of (or honestly, way more) preparation.
If someone can say, ‘OK, class ON Roman art taught IN Rome,
now…GO,’ in the imaginary gameshow
grocery store of preparatory materials, I know where to find what I need, and
how to use those things. I also know
that I’ll have to sacrifice as much time as it takes to absorb the information,
and I’m prepared to do that.
And as a colleague used to say to me about ‘serious’ things
in academia: remember, this isn’t brain
surgery. No one is going to die as a
result of what we’re deciding or doing.
So I may be super-serious about what I do, but I have to remember that
this is all relative.
So I cannot imagine being in a much higher-stakes position,
bereft of experience, somehow selected for the job anyway, and looking at about
three months of time to complete my education and training before I start the
work…the work that turns other equally ordinary (but remarkably more
experienced) people gray and weathered in four years’ time. The work that holds countless lives in the
balance. The work that requires KNOWING
when to react and when not to. And that
kind of knowledge can’t be run through with flash cards on the day before the
quiz. It has to be like muscle
memory. It has to be innate.
Someone’s got a staggering amount of HO-me-work to do.
And who will check it?
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