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| The Final School Zoom Meeting |
On Friday, I spent 5 hours on Zoom in two meetings and a lunch-time lecture. I listened 99.00% of the time. When I did speak about the writing center philosophy of emphasizing the writer over the writing product, I felt grounded and in my element. I thought of my writing teachers--James Britton, Nancy Martin, Carol Ellis, Dixie Goswami, Anne Wood, the Wild Count, Michael Armstrong... and my student-colleagues through the years. Otherwise... my Friday was the stuff of a 3:30am wake-up call.
For nearly 20 years I've listened to well-meaning university colleagues talk. I've lived through 3-hour meetings that could have either been a 15-minute chat or a one-page email. There's something about an academic that kicks their mouths into overdrive when in a gathering of other academics. I remember the few times this happened to me at UMaine. I started talking and could not stop. Is this what it is to be an academic? Those times that I've jibber-jabbered on and on, I left the lunch or meeting thinking to myself, "What the fuck just happened to me?"
Maybe talking a lot is the way many university people learn. Or maybe there's something else behind their words. Frustration? Impotence? A need to be recognized? Or perhaps this is the way they negotiate the world. I can't imagine what it's like to be an administrative assistant or another staff member at a university. Think of all the listening they have to do. Honestly.
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