What I've Learned From the TELS 9x9x25 Challenge

It's the last week of the TELS 9x9x25 Challenge, and I'm feeling a little bit sad.

I'm also feeling more than a little bit glad.  I have another new class to prep for the spring semester, I have been neglecting my own personal mommy blog, and I threw out my plans to participate in this year's NaNoWriMo like so much dirty diapers.  While twenty- five sentences per week initially sounded like a fairly manageable requirement, it became considerably more difficult once I remembered I was writing for an audience of college instructors.  The bar was set high in week one, and the (self-imposed) pressure each week to choose a unique topic, showcase my best writing skills, and avoid making even the smallest of grammatical errors has been huge.  NOT having to write a reflection about teaching every week is going to add some badly needed breathing room back into my busy schedule.

I'm still a little bit sad, though.  It's strange, but this blogging challenge - in which we've all participated as individuals - has made me feel closer to my colleagues.  As an adjunct, I haven't ever been asked to do committee work.  I don't see my co-workers on a regular basis (Facebook doesn't count...), and it is many a week that I don't set foot on a Yavapai College campus.  The reality is, I tend to be relatively disconnected from other instructors and from the institution as a whole most of the time.  Reading the reflections of my colleagues has reminded me each week that we're all in this together; that creating a better world through educating the people in our community isn't just something I want to do, it's something that we're all actively engaged in as a team!

If the goal of this challenge was to encourage instructors to become reflective practitioners in the field of education, then I think it was met.  Handily so.  When it comes to what I do well, this challenge has given me the opportunity to articulate many things that felt intuitive (but inarticulable) before.  When it comes to areas for improvement, this challenge has given me the opportunity to take pages from my skillful colleagues' playbooks, which they've generously shared in this medium.  It has also encouraged me to think outside the box, to find out what my fellow instructors are doing, and to ask my students what they want and need.  That's a very good outcome, and I am a better educator for it.

Oddly enough, on a personal level, I feel like this challenge has also spurred me in the direction of trying new things.  I modeled (fully clothed) for the YC art students this semester.  I agreed to allow a friend working on his PhD in psychology to test my IQ.  I started running with one of my girlfriends two mornings a week.  I looked up new recipes.  I gave blood for the first time and got my first passport.  While I can't definitively connect my newfound interest in unfamiliar experiences to this blogging challenge, I really do feel like the two are somehow linked.  And if so, that's a very good outcome too, and I am a better person for it.

Would I do it again?  Absolutely, but (as with art modeling) not right away.  It's laborious and somewhat painful, and I think I need to recover a little bit first.

Would I change anything about the way in which the challenge is constructed?  I don't think so.  The free-form nature of this project was part of its beauty.  There were so many potential topics to choose from, and so many different possible takes on each one.  Had we been constrained by subject or form or style or length, I'm not sure those of us participating could have come up with so many amazing entries.

At some point during one of our many at-home conversations about the project, Jason expressed concern that for some writers, 9x9 might be less of a 'challenge' and more of an 'inconvenience.'  "What if we made it twenty-five sentences exactly?" he suggested.  "Now, THAT would be a challenge."

"It would definitely be harder," I agreed, "but I think it's more important to get instructors to write reflections that are meaningful to them than it would be to ask them to stay within some arbitrary number of sentences for the sake of style."

"Well, it's not arbitrary, not exactly, but rather would be based on the classic five-paragraph ess..."

(Life with an English professor... sometimes, it's just like you'd expect.)

Would I change anything about the prizes?  No.  The prizes meant little to me, with one notable exception: the five homemade cookies, which I consumed in a single sitting.  I gave Jason my ice cream.  I haven't even opened my thumb drive.  I'm enjoying my water bottle and YC T-shirt, but I didn't need those items as an incentive to participate.  
I participated in this challenge for me, for Todd, for TELS, for Jason, 
for Yavapai College, for education as a profession, and for adjunct instructors everywhere.

I hope I did it justice. 

Before concluding this post, I took five minutes to see what my fellow instructors had to say this week (those who have already written their final posts, at least), and it seems we are in agreement.  This was a valuable and enriching experience.  We learned a lot, and we are better teachers for it.  Thank you to TELS for all you do, and to Todd for putting this amazing challenge online.  Thank you to my colleagues (Chris, Sukey, Curtis, Mark, and anyone I may be forgetting) for reading and commenting on my blog posts with your support and some truly amazing ideas and alternatives.  Thank you to my husband, Jason, an amazing instructor with superb insights into all aspects of life, for previewing my posts when I needed it, and keeping me in the challenge when I accidentally deleted my second post after spending hours writing it.  And finally, thank you to Yavapai College for giving me this opportunity.  Peace out.