Stephanie opened her eyes. Morning came too soon. She stretched and turned off the alarm on her phone. She rubbed her head. She felt a headache starting behind her eyes.
Her phone chirped , alerting her to a text message.
*READY FOR THIS?*
It was from Sara, her best friend at work. Sara worked in the office, processing all the student applications.
Stephanie was a teacher. September arrived far too quickly, she thought. She was in Mexico all summer, traveling, thinking, and deciding. Did she still want to be a teacher? Did she still want to live in Portland? Did she still want to marry Steven? Well, she didn’t know the answers to all of those questions yet. She didn’t know if she still wanted to be a teacher or live in Portland, but she knew she didn’t want to marry Steven. When she returned home two weeks earlier, she broke up with him and moved on with part of her life.
She still needed to decide if she was going to stay in town or move away, keep teaching or change careers .
Well, no decisions were going to be made today. She rolled over and got out of bed.
“Sara! This is unfair!”
“I know. I’m so sorry,” Sara whispered.
Stephanie was very angry. She was gone only three months and returned to work to find that the university had redistributed office spaces. The Intensive English Language Program now had to share office space with overflow from the World Languages Department. Since the university expanded several departments that brought a lot of donations to the school, other less-profitable departments were required to combine office space.
Stephanie walked through the suite to her tiny office that now held two desks. Her books were stacked randomly on her desk. Her small bookshelf was gone. An old, tall, metal bookshelf was in its place. Grey paint was peeling off of it, making it better suited for a junkyard than a university office. All her wall decorations and artwork were piled on the floor next to her desk.
Gritting her teeth, Stephanie walked in and set her bag down. She decided to get to work planning her classes. She wasn’t usually rude , but she couldn’t bring herself to greet her new officemate who didn’t even turn his head when she walked in. Well, if he couldn’t be bothered to say hello, neither could she!
Stephanie walked into the classroom. There were sixteen students on her class list, twelve countries represented, and at least eight languages. She looked around the room. Only half of the students were present. She checked her watch; there were still three minutes until the class started. She walked to the front and started unpacking her bag.
She wrote on the board:
She heard an audible sigh from the students seated behind her as she wrote number five, and she stopped herself from turning around and lecturing these new students about academic expectations. She should ease into it, give them time to get used to her and used to a new system. She tried not to be annoyed that they expected it to be easy. She was starting to think that she should walk away from teaching and find a new career. However, she should not judge them too soon. She took a deep breath and turned around with a smile on her face.
As Stephanie walked toward her office, she saw the door wide open. She was surprised at first, but she remembered that she now had an officemate. However, as she looked inside, she saw that no one was there. She felt frustrated and angry. First, her officemate ignored her when she came in before class. Second, he left the door wide open. Thieves often took advantage of opportunities like this. The campus was open, meaning anyone could walk into any building at any time, enter any office, and leave with any item. Stephanie personally knew three people on campus who had money or other items stolen from their offices.
She decided that she needed to talk to this officemate immediately. She sat down at her desk to start an email. Before she wrote one word, she realized that she should stop. She felt angry, but her wallet was still in her purse. Nothing was missing. She decided that since emails were impersonal and could be misinterpreted, she should wait until she could talk to her officemate in person. With that decided, she started grading the diagnostic tests.
It was going to be a long year. She really needed to change her attitude about her job. Maybe making a pros and cons list would be a good way to help her decide about her future. She set the diagnostic tests aside and got a piece of paper out of the recycle bin and started writing.
Pros
Cons
good hours
tiring
interesting
a lot of work / weekends grading papers
time off / vacations
feel unappreciated
helping people
rewarding
friends and coworkers
always learning
There were seven pros on her list. There were only three cons. With only three drawbacks that she could think of, she decided then and there to put away her doubts and just focus on the things that she liked about her job. She could deal with everything else later.
Stephanie raced into the classroom on the second day of class just seconds before it was time to start. It was not the best way to model good academic behavior, but there was no way to avoid it. She was walking out of her office when her officemate was coming in. She knew it might be her only opportunity to talk to him this week.
She stuck out her hand for a handshake. “Hi. I’m your officemate, Stephanie Green. It’s nice to meet you finally. I wanted to talk to you about closing and locking the office door, but I have to run to class now.” Stephanie was talking rapidly. She barely looked at him until she noticed he was waving his hands at her and pointing to his ear.
He spoke softly, “Slow down please. I can read lips.”
She stopped, shocked. She had not bothered to find out any information about her officemate. She was so upset about sharing an office, she didn’t even learn his name, what he taught, or anything at all about him. It never occurred to her that he was deaf . She felt like a jerk and a fool. She felt herself blush with shame.
She started over. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Stephanie.” Luckily, she knew how to sign the letters of her name: S-T-E-P-H-A-N-I-E. She spoke slowly and clearly again, “I have to run to class. Can we talk later?”
He smiled. “My name is Marc Smith,” he said in a soft, slightly unclear voice while signing at the same time.
They shook hands. They smiled. Stephanie still felt embarrassed, but she also felt relieved. She now knew why Marc hadn’t acknowledged her when she had been in her office the previous day. If she was honest with herself, she had kind of crept into the office, trying not to make any noise, not actually wanting to meet the person whom she felt was invading her space.
She shook her head, trying to erase the embarrassment from her mind so that she could focus on class. Now, it was time to talk to her students.
“Good morning, everyone. I have looked over the results of the diagnostic tests that some of you took yesterday. Everyone who took the test has been placed in the correct class.
Unfortunately, some of you didn’t come to class on the first day. That’s going to be the subject of our first lesson on academic and university expectations. What happens when you don’t show up on the first day of a university class?”
“Teacher! Teacher!” A student from the back was waving his arm, practically jumping out of his seat to get her attention.
Stephanie looked at him. “Excuse me. What is your name?”
“Mohi. I just got off the plane this morning. I-”
Stephanie held her hand up to stop him. “Just a minute. This is a good place to start. Hi, Mohi. It’s nice to meet you. If you had been here on the first day, you would have heard me talk about my classroom expectations. One expectation is that students call me by my name. I’m Stephanie. Please call me Stephanie. Another expectation that I have in this class is that you raise your hand quietly when you want to speak. That way everyone has an opportunity to speak.Finally, it’s really important to attend the first day of class—without exception. Let’s get back to my question. What happens when you don’t show up on the first day of a university class?”
Stephanie smiled at Mohi. He seemed a little confused, and he started to open his mouth to say something, but she gave him a slight shake of her head. She knew that he wanted to continue explaining why he didn’t attend the first day of class, but she needed to let him know that it wasn’t the right time.
A student near the back of the classroom raised her hand.
“Yes,” Stephanie smiled at her. “Can you remind me what your name is?”
“I’m Mara.”
“That’s right. Thanks, Mara. What did you want to say?”
“Well, my cousin told me that you get dropped if you don’t show.”
“That’s interesting. Can you explain what that means?” Stephanie tried to pull a little more information out of her.
“I’m not totally sure. I think, like, the professor takes you off the class list. Is that right?”
“It is a definite possibility,” Stephanie responded. “Does anyone have an idea why that might happen?”
Kelvin, sitting near the front, raised his hand slowly.
“Yes, go ahead, Kelvin.”
“Sometimes there are other students waiting to get into the class. I’m on the waiting list for two university classes right now. The professors told me that if someone doesn’t show up on the first day, I’ll get into the class.”
“That’s right. Of course, the professor or the department has the final say as to whether or not students are dropped or added to the class, but if you aren’t there on the first day, it’s as if you are saying, ‘I’m not interested in being here at all.’”
A woman in the front row raised her hand. “What if you have a legitimate reason for missing the class? Not bad travel plans, of course, but something serious like a sick child?”
Stephanie smiled. She liked the way this woman thought, not trying to get around the rules, but genuinely curious about something that could possibly affect her.
“Great question! I’ll pose that to the class. What do you all think?”
The room was silent. It seemed as if no one had any ideas. Stephanie turned her attention back to the woman in the front.
“Your name is Ameerah, right?”
“Yes.”
“What do you think the answer is, Ameerah? What would you do?”
“I would email the professor and tell her why I was going to miss the class.”
“Good idea.”
Mohi shouted out, “But what if you can’t? What if you’re on an airplane?”
Ameerah turned to look at him, “That won’t happen because you know better than to make your travel arrangements at the last minute. You also won’t travel on the day you are supposed to be attending your first class of the term.” Ameerah smiled at Mohi. He knew he had been outsmarted. He smiled back and nodded his head in agreement.
“Okay. Yes. I understand. But-”
“No buts,” Ameerah stated. “We learned that in summer term. Excuses don’t help us learn.”
Stephanie laughed. “I like that! Let’s make it our class motto!”
