Six and a half years ago, our yard was completely ravaged during a significant home renovation, leaving no plant untouched by the upheaval. The extensive digging around the house was necessary for various improvements, but it resulted in almost total destruction of any vegetation. It wasn’t until the first spring following the renovation that we were able to begin to re-seed the grass and consider planting a garden. Our yard was nothing but dirt, mud, rocks, and one very pissed off ol’ apple tree that looked over the carnage like she had all the power she needed from Mother Earth to withhold her fruit for years in silent protest (which, it turns out, she did in fact have all the power, and withhold she has). After a few weeks of sun that first spring, I realized that the matriarchal apple tree wasn’t the only survivor. There was also a teeny tiny unassuming Resilient Peony (capital R, capital P) near the new front steps of our house. It made its presence known with little sprouts of stems, unfurling desperate looking little leaves reeeeeeeeeaching for the sun. Every spring it tried again with a few more stems and leaves than it had the year prior. Two years ago, it started to make a bud, but for the last two years the bud would die closed as the plant returned to hibernating for the winter. This spring, the Resilient Peony tried again and this year, for the very first time, the bud bloomed. Six Junes later, after trying again and again, the Resilient Peony produced its very first magenta flower.
I doubt that any of my neighbours walking by my house notice that it took that little peony plant six seasons of resilience to finally bloom. If its flower catches their attention, they may notice its small stature and admire its sweet smell without any way of knowing about the patience, grit and tenacity that was required for its bloom to occur.
And isn’t that usually the way with resilience in humans as well? We often see the bloom in others, but rarely do we get to witness the relentless spirit of perseverance that has been involved in the blooming process.
Of course, because I use all the simple things in life to help me understand the big things, as I’ve watched the Resilient Peony bloom this year, I have been considering how we measure success. Which has been at the forefront of my mind since last January when I started a teaching gig at Vancouver Island University. Teaching adult learners requires you to be on your game, to know your shit, to be highly adaptable, and to be prepared for everything and anything. Seeing as this is just between you and me, I can tell you that I was absolutely not prepared for everything and anything. However, I did what I usually do: I made up for what I lack in experience (zero) and skills (minimal), with a whole lot of heart (big). Yet, it quickly became clear that my over-extending and deeply feeling heart was working within a construct that wasn’t designed for, you know, unique growth journeys.
During this past semester of teaching, my first as a university instructor, my high expectations for academic success, coupled with my passion for professional excellence, collided headfirst into my (almost) unlimited supply of compassion for my student’s human-ness.
It’s only been after the dust has settled on the insane active pace of the semester that I have begun to reflect on how impossible it seems to maintain these two values, titans amongst my personal guiding principles, without one trumping the other (no political reference intended).
When I saw the Resilient Peony finally bloom, I didn’t feel disappointed about how long it took to bloom. Instead, I felt, and still feel, a curious sense of contentment because this teeny tiny plant bloomed on its own time, in its own way. And that feeling of contentment, with both the process and the outcome, is what I’d like to find within post-secondary education–For myself and for my students. Is it possible to lean into the idea that while still upholding academic and professional excellence, and regardless of how close (or far) assignment submissions are from the academic expectations, all of us as learners can feel that we are right where we need to be in our own process and every effort we make to show up is enough?
I don’t know the answer to that question.
So, while the question just hangs there in black and white, and for the time being, I’ll be moving forward without a solution. Instead, I’ll walk into my classroom next September attempting to gingerly hold my desire to create space for everyone’s individual journeys of resilience right next to my belief in academic excellence.
And then I’ll acknowledge to my students that I don’t yet know how to facilitate both these things simultaneously, but that I’d like to try…And that’s probably right about the time I’ll be reminded that amongst all the things I don’t know about teaching (basically everything), the one thing I do know is that those university classrooms are full of Resilient Peonies.
And it will be in their presence and in their contributions that they will show me the way.