Watevs: A New Life Approach

I’m having a lazy day today. Well, I’m not being a lazy human being. The laundry will get done and my backlog of household cleaning tasks will be finished by the end of the day. Today I’m having a lazy brain day.

I’ve been thinking about how great it would be to be able to answer every question today just my students would. I got this idea as I exhaustedly drove home yesterday. How easy it would be. I’d never have to consider how well I was conveying my message. I’d never have to consider my audience. I’d never have to go an inch out of my way to get what I want.

I could ignore all my student emails until after the homework was due and then write, “Sorry I didn’t email you earlier. My email was broken.”

I could skip today’s committee meeting and pretend like it never happened. If asked about it I could say, “I was there you just didn’t see me.”

I could ditch my office hours and later claim, “Oh. I looked for my office I just couldn’t find it. Maybe it moved.”

If a student asked a homework question in class, I could write some chicken scratch on the board and say nothing.

If a student asked when my office hours are, I could say, “Look at the syllabus.”

When asked if the exams are graded yet, I could say (since I must speak the truth at least once today), “The cat snatched my pen.”

Of course, this would put them in the awkward position of deciding whether or not to follow up with a snarky question or comment. “You don’t have another email to use or you couldn’t make up a new gmail account?”, “Then you can tell me what we discussed at the meeting where I didn’t see you.”, “I’m pretty sure that you office didn’t move. I was there waiting the whole time.”, “I can’t read that how am I supposed to evaluate your work?”, “But you are right here and you can answer the question.”, or “And that’s the only pen on Earth?”

I’d like to think that this social experiment could really teach us about each other. But it wouldn’t. It would just make our students madder at us. There are some other wisps of potential outcomes of this experiment but I'd have to have half a brain to mold and communicate them and that's about twice what I'm allowing myself today. But it sure would feel good to have a day without any sort of responsibilities or consequences.

Well, I’m off to finish the laundry and the vacuuming.