This week I’d like to step away from bonafide learning science and share something that happened to me this week. Hot off the heels of the fumes of watching Nomadland, my wife and I bought a camper van for spontaneous jaunts to the Adirondacks (sleeping in an old Camry at 43 years old isn’t as “comfortable” as it once was).
As it happened, my brother knew a guy who was selling his camper van. So my wife and I bought it. It’s a 1988 Dodge B250 XPLORER, and it’s a beast to drive, so I wanted to get some practice in before longer trips. So a quick trip to the Victor campus (I live eight miles away) seemed reasonable.
You need to know that the van (I’ve been calling it Vancent Van Go, but my wife isn’t convinced that it’s going to stick) is the kind of vehicle that looks like it might go about six miles before breaking down. Which is awesome because on Tuesday it went about six miles before breaking down.
On my way to class.
Spoiler alert – I had to cancel class (but I was able to get the van up and running so I could get home and swap it with a vehicle that does not look like it will go about six miles before breaking down and teaching my second class of the day).
The class I had to cancel was an FYE course, but about half of those students are enrolled in the second class I teach so they stuck around for the second class.
I walked into the Victor campus fully expecting the students to be in the computer lab working on their work. Instead, they were playing billiards. Some of the students were playing cards. Some were crowded around a computer troubleshooting code for a current assignment. Some were on their phones.
But they were all happy and relaxed. They were interacting with each other. They were in the moment.
It made me think back to my camp counselor days when campers were part of an organic evolution of community. No stress, no deadlines. Just fun. And that reminded me of something I lose sight of sometimes – it’s easy to get lost in the breakneck pacing of courses. And with all the issues we know to exist in mental health, SEL, and wellbeing, it’s worth devoting a few hours a semester to our students. It’s worth class time to build community, relax, and slow down.
While I don’t plan on driving Vancent Van Go to class any time soon, I do appreciate the serendipity that my students and I encountered.
If you’re asking yourself how you can inject this community into your own course, there are about a billion different ways. There really isn’t a wrong way.
But if all else fails, you can always get your own Vancent Van Go.
