On Patience

I have been thinking about a lot of 'p' words this week. The usual one, pedagogy, but also other ones like pandemic of course, and the one that keeps coming up a lot in relation to both of these other p words: patience. Patience is an interesting word and a very fraught concept at the moment as we try to navigate between spaces and places where it is important to have a lot of patience, and where it is important to draw the line at our limits of patience. 

For mood and UDL engagement possibilities, you may want to read this blog post with this Guns N' Roses song playing in the background (which may also be playing in the background as I write this). Etymologically patience is of course from the same root of a word that we are encountering a lot lately which is patient. Patience is from the Old French meaning the quality or ability to bear suffering. This is important because there is a lot of discourse right now about bearing suffering and being resilient (which is a whole other blog post I don't want to get into right now). On the one hand our governments and officials are asking us to have a lot of patience as they try to get this vaccination schedule right and help the population. However, when I see things like what has happened this week with a random MS Form being distributed by Michael Garron Hospital saying that you can sign up for remainder vaccines if there are some each day, where the catch is you have to get there in 30 minutes after they call you; an ableist caveat that means that only those with a car (i.e. this would not work for a majority of East Toronto people) or the means to find and pay for an Uber in that short window (thus, not folk who use mobility devices or need longer to get ready to leave their homes) can take advantage of this, it is hard to have patience for this inequity and ableism. And honestly nor should I have to.

Be patient they say, when I point out yet another thing that excludes folk. Like this week at a Teaching and Learning Conference hosted on a platform without captions, which even had a session on AODA. I try to be patient, but I think my patience runs thin when modelling is not present. If we want to promote inclusive pedagogy, we should be practicing inclusive pedagogy, comprehensively, holistically, full stop. This is where I thank Guns N' Roses for captioning their video (every video from 1989 needs captioning in my opinion, I'm looking at you official video for Soul II Soul's Keep on Moving). 

In these instances there is a tension between being patient and being complicit in ableist systems. Ethically, it is difficult to be patient here. This week my Internet dropped 3 times during my synchronous course time. It has never done this before, and so I told myself to be patient. I was disappointed because I didn't want to let the students down. But the students were very patient, and very understanding. On reflection I think that is because I have tried to model a pedagogy of understanding and patience this semester. Students contact me via email about things that are happening and reasons why they need a few more days and I never say no. I give them a few more days. I am patient. They need patience. We are living in times where patience is very important pedagogically. Sometimes there is no communication and I am left to guess what has happened. I often reach out to see what I can do to support. I am patient; I wait for a response. Sometimes that response never comes. Sometimes that response comes very late, or it comes with framing that doesn't take into account that I am also human and not a robot (though sometimes I actually think of myself in these unkind robotic ways). In those cases I have to reflect on the feelings I have and how to be more supportive and more patient. 

Sometimes what patience is also coupled with is awareness. Many times when I was not patient about ableist things I have encountered it actually turned out to be a learning moment for the other person. It is not that they were doing it on purpose they say, it was because they were not aware. Lack of patience as spreading awareness. Speaking from previous experience, maybe the students don't know or realize that their faculty member is precariously employed and thus working 4 different contracts at 3 different institutions and therefore their window to move grading of late assignment around is razor thin. It is an opportunity to teach them about sessional (adjunct) teaching and the higher education system. Lack of patience as knowledge distribution. So patience is not an all or nothing thing. It has levels; it has appropriate timing. It can bring change- sometimes. Being patient with ourselves is important and knowing our limits is as well. When I could hardly walk this week due to back pain I resigned myself to the bed and heating pad as soon as my work day was done. I patiently awaited medicine to be delivered to me (though to be honest I was really not patient about that and it is hard to patient when you are in extreme pain for 4 days straight). One could easily argue that patience is actually a foundational feature of Higher Ed. You only have to think about the publishing and peer review system to see how it fluctuates between extreme patience and "hurry up please, it's time" to quote T.S. Eliot.

COVID is showing us how we have too much patience, and simultaneously not enough. May we all find the balance we need and deserve.