In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said,
“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord;
make his paths straight.’ ”
(Matthew 3:1–3)
I’m not sure how many of you know this, but I used to teach Behavioural Science at the college in Kingston. I also ran the program there. I liked the job a lot – it was busy, to be fair – but I’m an extrovert who likes to talk, so teaching at the college level was good for me. There were things about this job that became impossible for me to juggle, but that’s a story for another time.
One of the classes I taught – one of my favourite classes – was called “Behavioural Interviewing and Counselling.” It was this really fun, very interactive class that got students working very hard on how they asked questions and listened to responses so they could provide the best therapeutic intervention.
And so me, being me, set up an evaluation system where the students every week had to videotape themselves – yeah, this was back in the days of VHS recorders and these huge cameras. They would videotape themselves doing part of a session, displaying the skills that we had talked about in class that week. And then I would watch the videotapes and provide them all with feedback on what I saw.
Honestly – some of the tapes were hilarious. Nothing like talking about appropriate eye contact in a class to produce a pile of tapes of students staring bug-eyed at a camera.
But what seemed like a good plan at the time very quickly descended into chaos.
My class was usually about 50 students in size. And every week they would produce a 5‑minute video. So every week I would have 250 minutes of video time that I had to view and provide written feedback on. That 250 minutes easily doubled to 500. Five hundred minutes equals 8 hours and 20 minutes of marking every week. For one class. I taught 5 classes a week, and was running the program at the same time.
Yep – I was soon up to my ears in marking.
I don’t easily admit defeat. And I was a new professor at the time and so – I really wanted to be the Best Professor of All Time.
So, every chance I got, I would wheel the departmental TV and VCR into my tiny office, with my stack of 50 videotapes, and would kick my shoes off, grab a cup of coffee, and start watching and marking the endless number of student interviews.
One late Friday afternoon, when the school was basically vacant, my colleague saw the light on in my office and ventured down to see what was going on. He was an older prof, had been at the college for two decades by this point, and was a large, lumbering presence in the corridor.
He looked at me and my stack of videotapes with surprise – and remarked that he taught the same class in another department – and that he never had that much marking to do.
I was a little annoyed. I was working soooooo hard to teach students in a way that was relevant and useful. Or at least I thought I was.
And then my colleague just shook his head at me and said:
“Lynne, I’ve been doing this for over 20 years. I’ve trained up professionals in my field very well for that time. And all I have to say is: You’ve totally done this to yourself. I don’t know why you’ve done this to yourself, but you have. You set this class up. You set up the evaluation. And you’ve set yourself up in the process – for burnout.”
And then he just kinda lumbered out of my office and left me sitting there with my pile of unwatched VHS tapes.
I felt a little like I had mysteriously been visited by the Holy Spirit, and had been told to “make my path straight.” Because what my colleague said was absolutely true. For all sorts of reasons I had set myself up. This volume of marking had a bit to do with meeting the students’ learning needs, but had far, far more to do with meeting my needs.
My needs to look good to the students, to my colleagues, and to my Dean.
My needs to be regarded as a “go‑getter” who “gets things done” and “can be relied upon.”
My needs to be considered well – to be the best.
And the problem with all of these needs – well – it just spells out that deep down inside, you don’t think you’re worthy with your own bounds and your own limits.
This time of year, it’s easy to get caught up in a world that demands all sorts of things from us – our time, our money, and our sense of self. At Chat and Chew, most of us commented on the Christmases that we spent running from house to house trying to appease all parts of our family with “appropriate” times for visits, “appropriate” gifts, and “appropriate” attention. The consensus around the table was that this was exhausting and soul‑destroying, but all of us continued because we thought it was the only “right” thing to do.
On Monday this week I had back‑to‑back events and 3 (count ’em, 3) potlucks. By the time I got home I said to my family in all sincerity that I was never going to eat again.
And then, the image of my colleague, the Holy Spirit in disguise, came to my mind and I realized once again that I had totally done this to myself.
For what I thought were really good reasons in the moment.
But that I was called to a different path. A path that is God’s path. A path that makes straight in the wilderness, and doesn’t lead to burnout, but instead will lead me to a Baby, wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a Manger. Our Saviour as vulnerability rather than achievement.
Just something for all of you to ponder.
Blessings today and remember you are Loved.
~Rev. Lynne
Just a thought to ease the marking debacle. Could your students mark each other’s videos? They would have the criteria that you were expecting. Sometimes peers are more ruthless than the teachers. A thought.