Academic Time

Labour Day is late this year which means that we start school later this year as well. A lot of folk that I have talked to this week have referred to this week as some sort of bonus "found" time. Yet most people would admit that if we would have started school this week, very few would have been ready, from the teaching teams, to the students, to the staff. Because academic time is weird; it will always expand to fill space. 

I have been thinking a lot about time this week. And of course of Bergsonian duree and the right-nowness of experiencing time that seems to somehow be forgotten or at least not priviledged in the memory sort of way (instead of the due date sort of way that tends to be the nature of "now-ness" in academe). I am trying to be a bit more aware of the duree of academe this term and how that connects to the sensory and the relational.

I am teaching again this term and I am very excited about that. It is a course that will allow me to continue to model and reflect on the duree of pedagogy. But is also a space that will reinforce the relational of teaching and learning as well as the relational of being and working in community. 

There are actually so many things I am finding myself wanting to do this term and I need to be realistic of what time means, in linear and Bergsonian duree ways. Part of this is also being really real about goals for the term and year, which I am sure many folk are reflecting on now as well. Because honestly being able to say no to an ask is a privilege, but being able to say yes to an ask that fills your heart and soul with warmth and inspiration is an honour. I had one of those soul warming, brain scratching asks come today and I am still processing how glad I am for it and to start work on it. 

September comes with a whole bunch of feels and emotions. I was looking through old semester start posts in the blog and came across one post from 2012 that speaks to this exact thing. More and more because of the state of austerity academe the joy of a new school year is replaced with fear and burnout. I am actually seeing more "should I take a buy out" posts from my academic friends and less this is the cool pedagogical thing I am doing this term.

Part of this is of course because the time we are in has seen a real shift in valuing academic spaces and what teaching and learning spaces can inspire. So this means we need to really be honest with ourselves about what academic time means to us, what academic time is for, how academic time has changed, and how we ultimately fit within academic time space that wants us to be linear when the main thought goals should not be. So on this long weekend, as we ramp up to what could be the Sunday scariest of Sunday scaries, as we block off times in calendars, and see where we can possibly fit in one more thing, do the unthinkable... find time. Time to think about time, why academic time seems to be some sort of different thing that lives both inside and outside linear time.  For when in doubt you can always count on a Victorian poet to give us the perspective needed.

    "The time has come,' the Walrus said,

      To talk of many things:

Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax —

      Of cabbages — and kings —

And why the sea is boiling hot —

      And whether pigs have wings." (Lewis Caroll, 1871)