Sick Leave

I’ve had the flu for almost a week now—can’t say I’ve been fighting it. Now that I’m retired, there really is no reason to fight. There are no classes that need teaching or papers that need grading, no children that need caring for. I can snuggle up in my cozy bed and just let my white cells do their thing. My smart mother-in-law, a nurse, used to say, “The flu lasts a week if you treat it and 7 days if you don’t.”

So I have mostly just slept, rested, dozed, and slept some more. I’ve sipped various hot drinks: Lemon Zinger tea, chicken noodle soup (Campbells), and tomato-pepper soup (Costco). I’ve listened to most of Steve Young’s book QB on Audiobooks (I missed some when I dozed off—sorry, Steve), I’ve watched Law and Order, Longmire, and the entire series of The Crown. I have checked FaceBook approximately 2,325 times. I’ve used 3.5 (approximately) boxes of tissues. Twice I have ventured out to do something that seemed important. Twice I have regretted it.

Lying in bed feeling helpless brings me back to my childhood. I was the youngest in my family; when I started school, my mother took the opportunity to go back to work as a teacher. My getting sick was, as all working mothers know, a crisis in childcare. Luckily we had a sweet neighbor who lived through the block from us who was willing to take me in when I was sick. I have fond memories of lying, tucked up on her couch with a box of tissues beside me, watching “The Price is Right” and “Truth or Consequences.” On days when the neighbor couldn’t watch me, my big sister Patty would be induced to skip high school and stay home to care for me. Patty loved school and I’m pretty sure she hated having to stay home with me. I do remember how good she was to me, though. I lay on the couch under the scratchy green wool blanket, practicing braiding the fringes. Patty would make me tomato soup from a can, stirring it carefully to try to get all the lumps out. She would bring the soup to me on an aluminum TV tray, with saltines on the side.

When I was older, in junior high or high school, I was able to stay home alone when I had a bad cold or the flu. The problem was I had a vivid imagination and read a lot of Victorian novels, novels in which the heroine often languished from some incurable disease, usually consumption. So when I was home ill, I would spin fantasies in my head. I was the beautiful princess Esmeralda. The impoverished Duke Roderigo had loved me long, but knowing he could never aspire to my hand, had gone abroad to make his fortune. Just as he returned, rich beyond anyone’s dreams, he learned of my illness and raced to my bedside. We exchanged our vows of love forever, just before I expired limply in his arms. 

Sometimes this scenario was played out in my mind in contemporary circumstances, with my latest crush playing the Duke Roderigo role.

In any case, these fantasies were not the empowered-woman type of self-story I wish I had been telling myself.

If my illness fell on a weekend, my dad would not countenance malingering. If I wanted to watch TV, he would say, “If you are sick, you should be in bed.” And to bed I would go. If I was reading books in bed, he would say, “If you are well enough to read, you can write. Write a letter to your sister.” So I would write a letter to Patty who was in college.

Being sick as a working mom with young children was an unheard of luxury. I had to be REALLY sick to merit time off to be sick in bed. Paul was good to cover for me, both in the classroom and at home. But all moms know that dads don’t quite see things the way moms do. I knew I was really sick when the piles of dishes on the counter didn’t bother me, nor did I mind when he changed my whole lesson plan when he taught my class for me.  I knew I was getting better when the piles of dishes began to bother me.

And so this morning when I picked up the dead leaf by the front door, I knew I was getting better. That leaf had been there for the last four or five days. Every time I passed it, I noticed it. But it didn’t merit the effort of bending over my aching head, it didn’t merit walking those extra steps to the trash can. Today, though, I picked it up and walked to the trash can to dispose of it.

So I think I’m better. Not completely though. Because a nap sounds pretty good right now.

Part-Time Problems and Researching Solutions

I taught writing at BYU from 1976 to 2013. For most of the years, I was a part-time instructor, teaching required classes like First Year Writing and Advanced Composition.

I loved my work. I loved planning the syllabus, figuring out which assignments to give and when, thinking about how the students would learn the material. I loved planning writing assignments, creating the assignment sheet and rubric, considering what the most important aspects of the assignment were, how to help the students understand and learn the required skills, and how to evaluate their progress. I did not exactly love grading papers, but I did truly care about the students and enjoyed reading their papers. It was a privilege to be let into their world and know their thoughts and experiences.

But early in my teaching career, there were aspects of the job that were not great. Around 1983, part-time instructors in the English Department were considered flexible and optional. Our purpose was simply to fill in, to teach the classes that somehow could not be taught by either full-time faculty or graduate students. Hence, we often did not receive our teaching assignments until just before the semester began, and sometimes even after the first days of teaching. We also did not have office space for meeting with students in most cases. When there was office space, it often lacked basic amenities, like trash cans and functioning chairs.

Around this time, I was asked to serve as the liaison between the part-timers and the administration. (This responsibility was also unpaid, by the way.) In this position, I heard all the horror stories from my fellow part-timers. I wondered what I could do to address the situation.

I had no experience in negotiating for better labor conditions. But, as an advanced writing teacher, I did know quite a bit about writing research papers. So I decided the place to start was with research.

My students were just starting their research, so I committed to doing every research assignment with them. I did an overview of what was available on my research question: “How are Part-time Teachers Used in University Settings?” I went to the library to search paper indexes to professional journals and read the paper copies (Yes, my children, articles were not available digitally at the time.) I collected notes on 3x5-inch note cards and sorted them into piles as I tried to determine a good structure for my report. Finally, I wrote and polished and created all the pesky footnotes. At each step, I shared my work with my class as they shared theirs with me, and, as a group, we felt the community of people doing hard work together.

Finally, on the day my students submitted their paper to me, I completed “Part-Time Faculty: Advantages, Disadvantages, and some Suggestions for Improvement.” I printed it out on our Daisy Wheel printer, stripped off the perforated pin bar edges, and submitted the stapled twenty-seven pages to the department chair. Surely, Dr. Harris was astounded to find a research paper from one of his adjunct teachers in his box, which my cover memo probably did little to explain.

The “Suggestions for Improvement” all came from my sources but included selecting part-timers early, providing adequate support services, instructional clinics, teaching awards for outstanding faculty, and creating a “corps” of permanent part-time teachers. I was too intimidated to make my own suggestions.

Within a few days, I received a call from the chair’s secretary setting up a lunch meeting with Dr. John Harris and the current coordinator of composition, Elouise Bell. It turns out that both Dr. Bell and Dr. Harris had been concerned about the situation of part-time faculty. They were aware of the recent discussion on the topic, including The Association of American Colleges’ report on “Part-Time Faculty Employment” and The Modern Language Association’s  “Statement on Part-Time Faculty”—which were cited among many other sources in my paper. The academic conversation I reported on in my paper made clear that the exploitation of part-time faculty not only hurt the part-timers, it hurt the quality of instruction overall.

 My little paper had brought all their concerns to the fore and they were ready to discuss ways to improve things. Within a few weeks, a new policy memo was sent to all part-timers.  A “part-time corps” would be identified, a “small carefully chosen group of instructors” who could plan on teaching regularly during fall and winter semesters. These instructors could know months before what classes they would teach and be able to prepare more thoroughly. Also, office space was made available for part-timers, and we were invited to the instructional training that was provided for graduate students.

I was, frankly, amazed. I never expected my little paper would have such a result. What did I learn from the experience?

1.        Do what you know. I had confidence in my ability to research and write about a topic. So that is what I did.
2.        Knowledge is power. Because I knew the research, statistics, and national conversation on part-timers, I could discuss the concerns in a way that went beyond our local complaints. I had evidence that our concerns were not just hurting individuals, they were hurting the quality of education across the country. We were not individuals with individual problems—we were part of a national movement, part of a national concern.
3.         Trust in the good will of those who make decisions. When I submitted that paper to the chair, I believed he was a good man, I trusted he would make good decisions when the facts were before him, and he did.

Most of all, I learned that if you see a problem, don’t just complain. Do what you can to be part of the solution.

Going to Church with Mama

I come from a long line of Mormons on both sides of my family. But by the time my parents grew up and married, their religious experience differed. While my mom grew up seeing her grandmother read scriptures every morning and her bishopric grandfather offer 20-minute family prayers, my dad watched his hard-working cowboy dad chew tobacco and go to the local saloon to have a beer in the evening.

Though my parents were married in the Mormon temple--and my dad never drank or used tobacco--for many of the early years of their marriage my dad was much more concerned with making a living than going to church. He worked hard and figured Sunday was a day to rest.

So, when we children were young and living in Oakland, California, we mostly went to church with Mama. Sunday mornings she always got us up and dressed in our Sunday best. Dad would be in his golf clothes, heading out for a morning on the links. We followed Mama to church. There was never a question about where we should be. We should be in church.

In those days we had Sunday School in the morning and Sacrament Meeting in the evening. So in the morning Mama took us to the downstairs Junior Sunday School room where we would learn “Sacrament Gems” (short scriptures to recite) and give “Two and a Half Minute Talks” to each other. After singing “Jesus Once of Humble Birth” or “Reverently and Meekly Now,” we would take the Sacrament with the other children. We would go to our Sunday School classes and then run out in the sunshine to meet Mama and go home.

In the evening, after a good pot roast dinner, we would leave Daddy snoozing on the couch in front of the TV and go back to church for Sacrament Meeting. There we would take the Sacrament again, and hear talks given by the grownups. When I was little, Mama would take a clean handkerchief from her purse and fold it into a little cradle with twin “babies” in it. Or I would take Mama’s white gloves and stuff one glove into the other and play with the funny white hand. Sometimes Mama would quietly show me how to make a church with my hands: “Here is the church, here is the steeple. Open the doors and see all the people. Close the doors and hear them pray. Open the doors—they’ve gone away!”

On a weekday afternoon, we went to Primary after school—the children’s organization. There we sang songs and had religious classes, but we also made crafts and played games. We sang “Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam” and also “Jumbo Elephant.”

Mama not only made sure we went to church, she went with us. She taught in Primary or Sunday School. She played the organ or the piano; she sang in the choir. She showed us that going to church and serving there was not only the expected thing to do, it was a happy thing to do. We knew that she loved the church, and we loved it too.

Even though Mama and the children went to church and Dad didn’t, I don’t remember any friction about it. Mama never said anything bad about Dad not going. Dad never seemed to resent the time we spent in church. Each respected the other.

I don’t remember a lot of talk about religion in our home. We always said a blessing on our meals, but there was no family prayer or family scripture study. The influence of the church, though, was a strong current through our lives.

We children, all four of us, all developed strong testimonies of the church, and brought our own children to church, teaching them the joy of participating in all the services and activities. Eventually, when most of the children were grown, Dad started coming to church with Mama. He showed his love for God as he led our family in prayer, with tears in his eyes.

My mom never preached the gospel to us. She lived it, and as we watched her, we wanted to live it too.

I think now about the great strength Mama showed in staying strong in her faith when she lacked the support of her husband. I’m sure many times it would have been easier to stay home with Dad, to go on a picnic or watch TV. But she didn’t.

I think of the families I know where one spouse believes and the other doesn’t and how hard that is. Knowing now the blessings of growing up in faith--how the teachings formed a bedrock moral foundation I could build on, how the love of God comforted me in my sadnesses and joys, how prayer became a source of safety and calm—knowing all this, I am grateful my mama took me to church.

Note: The photo above is my Sunday School class in 1960. I am peeking out from the back row, about 4th from the right. Sister Nackos was our teacher.