No Glory Days, but Plenty of Pop Songs: an Academic Celebrates Community

Going to conferences can be the perfect antidote for the day-to-day work of an academic.  I usually have mixed feelings of “Yay!  I get to go learn stuff and hang out with like-minded people” simultaneously with “I am soooo not ready for my presentation.  Do I have to do this?”  My friend Susan captured this perfectly.  The night before I left, I discovered that the luncheon I was to attend was 90 minutes earlier than I thought, which wrecked my plans for a leisurely, post-rush hour trip up 95.  Then, I looked at the convention program for the first time (I know, I know) and found out that my presentation was supposed to be on the article for which I won an award, not the new research I had just spent two weeks preparing for.  Oops.  When I told Susan these stories, she said, “When these things happen, don’t you wish you didn’t have to go, even if it’s something you looked forward to?” 

I understood what she meant, because I had had those exact same feelings at other times.  Nels and I almost didn’t take a trip to Puerto Rico, even though it was planned and paid for, because we had just been traveling to see family.  We did end up going, which was great.  For this trip to the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) annual conference, even with the last-minute problems, I still was excited to go.  Not to get the award, or talk about my research, but because I would be spending time with friends, old and new. 

The Buddhists call the assembly of ordained monks and nuns a “sangha.”  Yogis use the term more loosely, in that groups of students who practice together, say, at the same studio, might be called a sangha.  I like to think of it even more broadly, in that I feel like I’m a member of multiple sanghas—runners, yogis, writers, academics, Hoosiers.  Each of these sanghas have their own discourses and ways of being—their own social worlds. 

At NCTE, I was able to spend time with two different sanghas who differed in space and time.  One of my current sanghas is the Agentive Teachers’ Group, or ATG.  We are a coalition of teachers interested in social justice pedagogy and all that goes with it.  Our presentation was in the late afternoon on Friday, and we had a full house.  By staying away from the “talking heads” kind of presentation, we were able to engage in dialogue with the participants and learned as much from them as they did from us.  Although this group has existed for four to five years (none of us can remember, which I take as a good sign), I was gratified and humbled by how they talked about their work.  Afterward, at dinner, we didn’t talk about the presentation at all, beyond the initial “Wow, did you know Tom Romano was in our session?”  Instead, we talked about music, books, movies, and television shows, including arguments about what should be on the Top 10 Pop Song list of all time (a sampling of songs under discussion:  “Billie Jean,” “The Final Countdown,” “Heard It through the Grapevine”, along with newer stuff I didn’t recognize.  Hoosiers, rest assured I put in a vote for Mellencamp’s “Jack and Diane” and these East Coast folks agreed).    Sure, there was also beef regarding whether Shakespeare’s “Titus Andronicus” was crap or not.  What else can you expect from a bunch of English teachers? 

Then, instead of staying at the conference hotel, I stayed with two dear friends in Newton.  They are both educators, so of course we talked shop, but the topics ranged from politics to football to the benefits of vitamin D to contentment.  This is a different, more intimate sangha, and is just as important in sustaining my sense of connection and well-being.

Going to conferences is not just about current and local sanghas, though. It’s mostly about sanghas of the past.  If you have gotten your doctorate or been partnered with someone who has, (to this latter group, we owe you) then you know that graduate school sanghas, like professional sanghas, help you keep and retain your sanity.  Unless you’re in grad school, nobody really gets what you’re doing or why you’re doing it.  Even the language is different.  Meeting up with Beth, John, and Tasha was about reconnecting to a place and time that shaped who I am as a person and an educator.  I would not have made it through statistics without John’s patient tutelage and Tasha’s fierce commitment (I have called her Tenacious T ever since).  Beth and John were key members of the English Teachers Collaborative (ETC), the ancestor group of the current ATG.  Tasha, who is exactly five days older than me, and I share an Aquarian vibe that is both airy and fiery.  We haven’t seen each other in years, but it didn’t seem like it, as conversation flowed just as naturally about our current concerns and lives as it did ten years ago. 

Interestingly, conversations with my past sangha members were not about what we experienced together in grad school.  There was no, as Bruce Springsteen puts it, Sitting back/trying to recapture/a little of/glory days.  Instead, we talked about where we are now, who we are now, and what is going on in our field.  The mileage between the physical and social spaces of Michigan, South Carolina, Virginia, and Rhode Island may be far, but the connections we forged through a doc program that managed to be both demanding and supportive are still intellectually and socially stimulating. 

It is a shame that academic institutions are committing less funding for conference travel.   The benefits of attending these yearly conventions are not limited to going to sessions or even presenting.  Instead, I would argue that the main value comes from creating and sustaining relationships.  Relationships drive and sustain all professions, and I’m not talking about networking, which is purely strategic.  I’m talking about authentic dialogue that comes from genuine interest in and support for others, not what benefits the individual only.   So this Thanksgiving week, raise a toast or turkey leg to your own sanghas, whether they are family, friends, neighbors, colleagues, or members of a specialized group.