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[Quick Fun Thread] One of my students accidentally submitted the wrong final assignment for my class. Instead of her Reflection Paper on Intro to Adolescence class, she submitted a paper for her class "From Motown to Hip-Hop" in the History dept.
In her paper, titled "The Evolution of Black Music Since the 1980s", she discusses: The Clark Sisters, Prince, MJ, Run DMC, Public Enemy, D'Angelo, Missy, Beyoncé, Kendrick, and [REDACTED] West.
I almost gave sis an A because she was speaking in my love language of Black music. 
But because I should be a responsible professor [see gif below], I commented and emailed letting her know she submitted the wrong assignment, but that I still wanted to read it. LoL
But because I should be a responsible professor [see gif below], I commented and emailed letting her know she submitted the wrong assignment, but that I still wanted to read it. LoL
I shared that this topic is actually a passion of mine and that I was excited to see it. We both laughed about it via email.
What's interesting though is how surprised and excited I was to see a piece of myself that I mute while teaching and "being professional"...
What's interesting though is how surprised and excited I was to see a piece of myself that I mute while teaching and "being professional"...
I connected this experience to when I let a piece of Bill Withers' "Lovely Day" play after a break with this very class during one of our Zoom sessions. They all smiled and swayed and mouthed along -- I didn' think they would care about the song, but they were so happy.
Anyway...there's some lessons here about showing up as our authentic selves in our classes and other spaces -- something about not muting pieces of our humanity to appear professional -- something about embracing our full selves even when we think it doesn't matter.
I thought that was a lesson I had learned, but it slapped me in the face again just now and I'm so grateful to learn it in a new, clearer way.
In the words of a wise woman: Have a good day and if you can’t, don’t go messing up nobody else’s!
In the words of a wise woman: Have a good day and if you can’t, don’t go messing up nobody else’s!
