BY CAPRICE LAWLESS
The sobering social and economic costs of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic cannot be overstated. The challenge for teachers to keep working via Zoom are not so much physical now, as they are mental and emotional, especially for those of us used to teaching face-to-face in classrooms.
Being in Zoom rooms too often underscores the trauma we are experiencing individually and collectively through this historic pandemic. Even so, as activists, we understand we need to stay connected and to keep organizing using Zooms. Those meetings, however, can be eerie and off-putting. They can feel inauthentic.
Our Colorado Conference is finding ways around the annoying aspects of Zooming. Our secret sauce: a little bit of fun. Research shows that humor can enhance the immune system, reduce stress, combat fear, bring comfort, and nurture optimism. We are planning our March 2021 meeting. With those ideas in mind, we had these questions:
How to interject a tiny bit of much-needed humor in this utterly difficult setting, as a hedge against the Zoom eeriness?
What could we create that might signal levity to an e-mail recipient?
What might we offer that would involve the attendee in the creation of further levity?
How could we recognize, at least in a small way, the difficulties members have faced as teachers during this time?
What unexpected images, unlikely words, and novel ideas would shout from the page, “We see you.” “We want to hear more about how you are doing and how you have coped.”
What tools could we create that would capture all of this in a single, easily downloadable page?
As an experiment, then, our spring meeting will feature a pre-game “UnHappy Hour” before we get down to the business of defending faculty rights. We have created a ready-to-go flier of “Supplies and Instructions” attached to our meeting announcement email (see attached pdf).
Feel free to use our flier if you want to add some much-needed levity to your next online organizing event. We are eager to learn how your chapter is using Zoom for organizing, and to see what downloadable tools you fashion to that end.
UnHappy Hour Supplies and Instructions 03 2021
While I probably share the progressive views of Caprice Lawless, I want to point out the theoretical and practical “use-value” of humor and comedy for changing attitudes. I’ve taught Film Comedy and TV Comedy for decades and studied the great theoreticians from Plato to Jerry Seinfeld. Most agree that comedy is an inherently conservative form; even satire is considered an ameliorative for the injustices and suffering of life.
The Buddha said that “Life is suffering” (or words to that effect). But comedy is designed to BLOCK the pain of life, which may be good for individuals during an epidemic, but that “escapism” may be a delusion to the real conditions of life (and death) and make us less likely to fight to right the wrongs of the current crisis — whether it be the Plague and government failure to improve things (esp. in my state, New York) or the ongoing crisis of capitalism. The thinking is that if you can laugh at something, you’ll be less likely seek to change it. As Karl Marx said (I’, paraphrasing): “Comedy is the opiate of the masses.”
Furthermore, given that Covid-19 is still with us, a comedic principle — first proclaimed by Mark Twain, Carol Burnett, or a fictional character in a Woody Allen movie — asserts that “Comedy is Tragedy + Time.” Yes, maybe we can joke about Lincoln’s assassination nowadays but what about Rush Limbaugh? (Oh, they’re already telling jokes about that!)
I’m starting to think AAUP should stand for “American Association of Unhappy Professors”!
At the end of a zoom social hour arranged by a local clan of instructors, I quipped, reluctantly, that we had experienced more of an “Un-Happy” hour. Everyone was eager to connect with one another after the first long semester of remote and online “pivoting”. (I call it more of a tectonic shockwave.)
Even though the company was quite good-humored and characteristically witty, the ambience included Christmas trees, music and lights in the backdrops of our respective living-zoom-rooms, our long overdue social hour was just not happy.
We shared stories, toasted to thriving a semester and a half of 2020 shut down, compared tactics and tried to bolster our collective morale with humor and empathy. In the end, we had few happy thoughts to share in our lot as adjunct instructors. Mind you, I credit these folks with being resourceful, committed, insightful and imaginative. They are people who look for and find the best in a situation. They are writers, poets, born teachers, artists, parents, friends, neighbors, adventurers and truly responsible citizens.
So, we admit this circumstance for what it is. It is UnHappy, yet we are not defeated. In fact, our potential surfaced brightly during this plague. Just as we perform in our roles as educators, we listen carefully, watch closely for hopeful signs, adapt, invent, recognize the problem at hand, identify and analyze what can be discovered, seek alternative responses when information is withheld, employ our most creative and constructive methods. We trust that humanity is basically good and we carry on. One foot in front of the other. As on a tightrope. Don’t look down and you’ll be fine.
Sure, commiserating is frequently necessary, but more than that temporary balm, this fellowship is the only place we can honestly discern the peculiar demands of our shared vocation, how we might survive, improve, deepen and thrive as educators and as human beings. I value the jury of these peers and invite their keen insight along this obstacle course. Unhappy honesty and genuine camaraderie make a darned good antidote for what ails us from many viral pests.
It is helpful to meet on this common ground of unhappy circumstances and relentless challenges, honestly acknowledging what is unique about the struggles of each person in our isolated zones, recognizing the corporate power and ingenuity of our efforts as teachers, which often goes unseen. Especially now. We speak a strange language, often not comprehended by our students nor by our leaders. So, we find kinship in this migrant tribe of contingent faculty. That is encouraging, even in an unhappy zoom hour.