My teaching responsibilities have been 'revoked' - revoked isn't the write word, but I'm tired and don't feel like thinking about a word that might lessen the significance of this action or allow me to come across in a more polite, sensitive, considered tone. I won't go into the political motivations that brought on this decision or the fact that in this instance, I truly feel that I capitulated. I accepted my 'redeployment' (I word I used when explaining the new arrangements to my students) and breathed a sigh of relief for all the wrong reasons. Now when confronted with the reality I feel differently. I can't seem to ignore the symbolic resonances of this action. At the time I just wanted the problem and the stress to go away. Now I feel an amplification of the dissident position I embody. There is a hint of shame, again. Was it easier to say yes to not teaching, than deal with the fall-out of trying to confront the retrogressive and static approaches and attitudes to teaching and learning and student support? Teaching isn't a chore for me - it makes all the abstract theories I've studied for so many years, come to life. It challenges me to be critical about those very abstract theories that excite me when I read them, but are reconstructed differently in practice.
The point is, I'm disappointed and I wonder now, if I shouldn't have fought harder to retain a teaching role. Maybe I need to find other ways, other places to fulfill my teaching needs. Maybe! A residual feeling, a nagging thought at the back of my head keeps coming up though; Why do I continue to be the square peg trying to fit into a round hole. When will I find that freaking elusive square hole?
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