Be kind to yourself

I saw this on Twitter. I'm NOT posting it as a New Year's resolution but as a lesson learned from my first semester on the tenure track.

I love my job. I mean, it's a job, but I really like it. Basically, I think I've finally landed at a place that suits me well. I've been working on this kindness to other people for a couple years now, after a nasty run-in with a fellow researcher in Abidjan (buy me two beers to hear the story). But the kindness to myself is a bit more difficult – and I'm not talking about the "self care" that is all the rage, whether in its original definition or in its subsumation under capitalism.

No, this is about self-care as part of my job. The first year on the tenure track, Washington College protects its faculty from service to the college. So I'm not on any campus-wide committees and am not tapped to do anything important until I figure out where most of the buildings are. (Goal: find out where "The Egg" is.) Instead, first-year faculty are expected to teach their little hineys off, learn the ropes, and plan out the next few years.

All great. But I began pressuring myself to do the very best at teaching. If this was really my only job, especially that first semester, I needed to be so good and create such amazing, engaging lectures and projects and readings. I'm not a pollyanna and so could recognize that student success was partially on the students, but I would get frustrated when they seemed bored or confused. I wanted to know what was wrong with me that I couldn't get everything perfect.

What I finally learned was that I was new. Just like it took me a while to figure out what a dissertation was so that I could write one. Like learning a new skill. Some things in the classroom, I'm good at. Some things, I'm still figuring out. And this is being kind to myself. Not taking setbacks personally. Learning from other professors but not letting them overwhelm me with "you know what you should do ...". Allowing myself to be a bit of a beginner.

I'll get the hang of it. I don't have to incorporate every innovative teaching technique this semester. I can do a couple, and once I master those, I can work another one or two in. A skill, not a gift.