I have just announced the third one-day workshop TELLC (Teaching English Language, Literature and Culture), which is a very modest Departmental event aimed at gathering together my colleagues to discuss what we do in class. Last year I invited the English Studies specialists at the Universitat de Barcelona to join in and this year I have extended the same invitation to the other English Departments in Catalonia (Lleida and Tarragona). A friend emailed me back asking me whether I really wanted to set this in motion, as neither the workshop itself not the corresponding publication (see http://ddd.uab.cat/record/132688) could count for our official CVs. His is the kind of remark that makes me pause and think with dismay, sure, what is all this for? So here I am trying to explain myself.
I first thought of TELLC because, as happens in other Departments, possibly around the world, we are constantly discussing bureaucracy but not pedagogy. When the time comes to revise the Syllabus, around April, we exchange a flurry of emails about whether we need to alter any matter and that only if we share the course with other teachers. If we don’t, then basically we do as we please, with little real feedback from colleagues (or students). If we share a course, we discuss possible innovations by email because since so many teachers are part-time associates with two jobs it is simply impossible to have team meetings, as we should (also more than once a year). The most we have managed is introducing the novelty of publishing in the Department’s website a joint reading list for everyone to see what everyone else is teaching, yet a list gives you by no means an impression of what we do in class. And here I am not even mentioning the Language teachers who teach mysterious matters such as CLIL.
So, I just thought that it would be healthy and a nice investment in team building to spare one Friday a year to tell each other about what happens in our classes. Now, to appease concerns that this was worth nothing for our CVs I convinced UAB to certify the workshop as a teacher-training event of the kind we are supposed to attend regularly, hoping that this will also be helpful for our teaching assessment every few years by the Catalan Government. I also made a very pretty diploma, a kind of document we academics fondly collect in Spain, where authorities seem to suspect university teachers of being inveterate liars and where you need to present certificates for every single activity. The first two TELLC meetings (2015 and 2016), I believe, have been enjoyable and productive and I’m happy enough. We’ll see how TELLC progresses in the future. If the workshop fades away into oblivion at least I will have done my best.
Organizing this workshop, like writing this blog, is something I could very well not do: it is a self-imposed task which takes time away from my research. You know what it is like: answering lots of e-mail messages, booking a room (no easy job in my overcrowded university), producing a programme, chasing colleagues for them to hand in the text for publication, editing the booklet… you name it. These days I have some extra time to spare for pursuits like this because I am one of the privileged researchers granted the benefit of doing less teaching thanks to Minister Wert, now gone from the Government. My not teaching two classes explains my apparent hyperactivity, also expressed in the translation of Pedrolo’s Mecanoscrit del segon origen and in my current editing of two monographic issues for Science Fiction Studies (on Spanish SF) and for Alambique (on Mecanoscrit). I don’t know how to explain this better but after wasting my time in endless bureaucracy for three years as Degree Coordinator, I suddenly feel very, very happy to be investing my time in matters more closely related to my teaching and research. Here is another one, the booklet I have produced with my BA students and aimed at guiding readers to navigate their way into SF short fiction: http://ddd.uab.cat/record/163528
I am very well aware that those of us who have our fingers in many pies are a pest for those who want to be left alone. Sorry about this but, well, an invitation can always be rejected. I acknowledge that I am active on many fronts but, among other motivations, I always bear in mind the double daily routines of my associate colleagues (and friends) in the Department; I owe it up to them to make the most of my time as a privileged tenured teacher. I don’t support, however, and will never support the obsessive research type who thinks that we should not enjoy any spare time and, although I am certainly guilty of using at least part of my weekends for work, I make a point of limiting my daily work.
I think this is a lesson we still need to learn in Spain: 8 hours a day can be extremely productive, much more than 12 hours, if you do not procrastinate. I love the sound of my computer closing down by 17:00 at the latest, earlier if my day before the screen begins by 8:00. Otherwise, what is the point? There is always, of course, the tricky matter of whether reading (or seeing films and TV series) post 17:00 counts as work but, believe me, I’m the first one to subscribe to the idea that daily leisure is an unalienable right. I recently employed one afternoon in making a pair of shoes for a doll and I had a whale of a time… A second pair is soon coming. So, not at all, it’s not always work, work, work…
Now that I have established that one can run a reasonable academic career by avoiding the pitfalls of procrastination and by setting limits to your daily routine to always enjoy leisure (I don’t have kids, that would make a difference…), I’ll address the matter of how these 8 daily hours can be used. And I will acknowledge that I suffer from the main Spanish academic malady: I do lots of activities because I find no way to focus on the one activity I really want to carry out–writing books. You must be thinking well, just stop doing everything else and you will have time to write the books. But here we go back to the ‘no cuenta’ mantra and the power of the CV in our lives.
If you can, imagine a CV with nothing else but, say, 6 books, produced in 25 years (this is how long I have been active as a teacher/researcher). No conferences (either attended or organized), no articles in journals or collective volumes, no extras such as giving seminars or taking part in tribunals. Just pure book-writing besides the exact amount of teaching you need to do (this is how I imagined my career when I was 18). I might be wrong but even if the books were first rank, would prospective employers and tribunals be impressed? I doubt it. We live in the age of the bulky CV and of the fisherman’s strategy–by which I mean that we need to be constantly active because we never know whether the fish will bait. I have just been told, for instance, that a book chapter I handed in one year ago might be published in 2018. If I had counted on that work for urgent assessment, then I’d be lost, hence the need to multiply myself and my work for we never know when work will be published and what really counts for the Ministry.
Take, and with this I’ll finish, my being part of the Eurocon team (again, something I am doing because I have less teaching to do). This is an SF and fantasy literary festival addressed to fandom, of no academic import. Technically, a waste of time. Yet, Eurocon has brought to me very many new contacts, some of which have led to wonderful academic activities (like the ones around Mecanoscrit) which I would have never embarked on. I’m struggling to find a label for the kind of activity that brings in unexpected academic perks… The case is also that I am learning very, very much because, after all, I am constantly surrounded by very keen readers, most of them really erudite in the SF and fantasy film. And, well, I’m airing my brain beyond the university walls, which is always healthy. I gave a talk about Harry Potter before an audience of 200 enthusiastic readers a couple of Sundays ago at PotterCon and although I could have spent that Sunday morning on the beach, I knew where I would more fun. And it did not count for my CV.
To sum up: I’m trying to downplay the impact of the ‘no cuenta’ mantra and just enjoy myself. I enjoy organizing TELLC because it is about bringing colleagues together as I enjoy being part of this little mad world which is Eurocon. If I didn’t enjoy myself, then I would not do it, for one thing is clear to me: engaging in academic activities for the sake of an ultimate goal like fattening up your CV feels to me like duty, and that is not enjoyable. I think that enjoyment is essential for creativity and duty a total dampener, even though I am a most dutiful person (I teach Victorian Literature, how could I not believe in duty?).
So, odd as this may sound, I’m all for fun to increase creativity, which increases productivity. Never ever forgetting that our CV should not take the place of our life.
Comments are very welcome! (Thanks!) Just remember that I check them for spam; it might take a few days for yours to be available. Follow on Twitter the blog updates: @SaraMartinUAB. You may download the yearly volumes from http://ddd.uab.cat/record/116328. See my publications and activities on my personal web http://gent.uab.cat/saramartinalegre/