I wrote, recently, about conference travel during the semester. The flexibility to cancel a class or two comes from the fact that, depending on the timeslot one is assigned, some classes meet more often than do others. I burned two classes on conferences this term, using all my reasonable flexibility.
But this week I suffered from a migraine.
I have had them since at least my undergraduate days. I have come to associate their onset with sleep deprivation, the consumption of chocolate, and the threat of a chinook wind, the last being a common occurrence in southern Alberta. Over the past eighteen months, I have been getting them about once every six or eight weeks, but this autumn, on account in part of the pleasant weather, I had gone about three months without one. On Wednesday, just after noon, I started getting symptoms. By three o’clock, it had set in. I cancelled a social engagement for six o’clock and hoped a short nap might break the cycle of pain.
No such luck.
A migraine sufferer knows all one needs to know of hell. How could I possibly face preparing Thursday class notes? Luckily, I needed only to add a few details: I try not to leave anything to the last minute. But the larger question looms: what should a teacher do when ill? These days, many of us have an enlightened view of not spreading contagion in the workplace, but even a necessary absence can be disruptive, if it has not been previously announced.
I am no hero, but I am proud to have missed only one class, unannounced, over the past twenty years. And, clearly, if I did not have a class on Thursday morning, I would have gone nowhere near campus. But unlike my colleagues whose syllabi assign topics by the fortnight, those of us who assign specific topics to individual class meetings find disruptions to be very, well, disruptive. I think I did a poor job with my Thursday lecture, but we did cover what I wanted to cover, one week before term papers are due.
I often try to remember what it was like when I taught in St. John’s and in London, Ontario, two locations that are prone to weather cancellations. What did my syllabi look like then? Clearly, they were disrupted on a regular basis.
Clearly, as well, I did not use any discretion or flexibility afforded me back then to travel to conferences.
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