Learning to be a teacher

We all have our strengths and I've never considered "deals well with people" to be one of mine - probably a big part of the reason I never considered becoming a teacher. But here I am, in academia, teaching. Obviously I've known for years that I would be teaching at the university level, at least while in graduate school. I've had to attend many teaching workshops and classes as part of my graduate program, and I do take them very seriously because I know I have a lot to learn. I did learn after my first TA experience, which was extremely challenging, that I do sincerely enjoy teaching. Even though it was a difficult course to TA for several reasons, as I'm sure any teacher will tell you, the rewards far outweighed the costs. After that class, I was much more open to a future of teaching.

I am still navigating the the complexities of teaching at the university level - finding my teaching style, learning how to convey expectations to students and what it reasonable to expect, balancing the dry textbook material with examples from my own work, and acting like an authority figure. Last week I had to deal with the aspect of teaching I dislike the most - I had to confront someone about cheating (texting during an exam).

It was such an uncomfortable situation. I'm not a confrontational person, but I had to make a split-second decision to approach the student immediately or ignore the problem. Ignoring it wasn't a very good solution, especially since another student had alerted me to the situation. If I hadn't reacted, I would have been sending a message to the other students that I didn't care if they cheated or I was too timid to deal with someone blatantly breaking the rules. So I confiscated the student's cell phone. The worst part was that after I took the phone, I couldn't figure out how to turn it on. I was thinking "Wow, way to act old, Molly." But I thought quickly-enough and insisted the student show me their texting history.

In hindsight I do think I handled the situation in a responsible way and I don't think there is much I would do differently if I could go back. But I still feel like an imposter in the classroom. The TA who marched up to a student, ripped their exam out from under their pen, and demanded to see their phone was not really me. I never really thought of assertiveness as an attribute that could be learned, but I suppose I am learning how to be in control of a class. I do think it is important, being both a woman and being young, that I act like an authority figure and an adult in front of my classes. Next quarter I'll have to be even more prepared because it will just be me teaching 150 students four days per week. No professor, no labs, no discussion sections.

When am I going to be done with grad school?

The archaeology graduate student lab where I spend most of my time.

I think it's time for another grad school-related post. Along with being asked why grad school takes so long, I often also get asked when I'm going to be finished. After 4 1/2 years in graduate school, it's kind of a natural question. To be honest, I ask myself all the time too! The short answer is that I don't know. PhD programs generally don't have a set time schedule, they take as long as they take. The first couple of years are usually much more structured with classes and exams than the later years. In my program, during the first 2 1/2 years you take classes full-time and then take an exam to get your master's degree. After that, there are only suggestions, no hard deadlines, for when you should meet different program requirements. Because research for a doctorate is original, and one often has to learn a new set of skills to do the research, there is no easy way to tell how long it is going to take.

Anthropology, or the social sciences in general, have notoriously long doctorate programs. The natural sciences are generally faster. I think that is because those fields have more funding opportunities. The average time to attain an MA and PhD in my program is about 10 years (and I believe that is faster than many other anthropology programs across the country). I know you're all gasping, but let's just break that down. In my program, that is 2 1/2 years for the master's degree and 7 1/2 years for the PhD. While a little slow, I think that's actually not completely unreasonable. In the natural sciences, I think 6 years is pretty normal for a PhD, and 7 is certainly not unheard of. In many of those programs, you often don't have to get a master's degree, you can just skip to the PhD which is not an option in the social sciences.

So, when am I going to be done? I still don't know, but of course the closer I get the easier it is to see the light at the end of the tunnel. It's funny though, some of the hardest work comes at the end of the program: the actual analysis and writing the dissertation. So, the closer I get the more difficult the work becomes and it is still not easy to estimate how much longer I will be here. But, to ease your minds that I will not be spending a decade in graduate school, I'll give you my best estimate: I think I have about two years left, give or take, but please don't hold me to that!

Why does grad school take so long?

A Valentine's Cake (unrelated to the post)

Yes, I have been in grad school for a long time. =) I often get asked why it takes so long so I thought I'd write a post about what grad school has been like for me and why I think it takes so long to get a PhD.

I think the first thing that makes grad school take so long in my program is that we have to work part-time (20 hrs/week) as a Teaching Assistant, Research Assistant, or Instructor. That's 20 hours a week that we can't work on our own research. On the other hand, it really isn't a bad deal because we get PAID. They pay our tuition, health insurance, and a salary. It certainly isn't much money, but all things considered, it isn't such a bad deal to be paid to go to school. It's actually more money than I made working full-time at a retail job shortly after graduating from college, especially because that job didn't have benefits. These TA/RA/Instructor jobs don't last forever though, there is a bit of a limit to how long the university is willing to pay us to stay here, so there is some incentive to get done!

We also spent a lot of time applying for funding. We apply for all kinds of funding. I have a constant slough of scholarship applications, fellowship applications, grant applications, etc. that I am always revising my resume for, writing statements of purpose, personal statements, and summaries of my research for. The one that takes up the most time though is the National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Grant. This is the main place that students in my program apply to for research money for their projects. The application is very competitive though and students in my program routinely spend years refining their research proposals. I spent about a year on mine before I applied and I was turned-down, so now I have been revising it for another year but it is still not ready to re-submit. All this takes away from the time I could spent do the analysis for my dissertation...but I need money to finish the analysis, so the cycle continues!

There is also a constant slough of departmental responsibilities that come along with being a grad student. We have to serve on committees, attend seminars, and of course, drink beer when one of our peers passes a big exam, gets a grant, has a paper published, or finishes and gets a job!

Most of us aren't in grad school to avoid "real life" or because we don't know what we "want to do." We are getting our PhD's because we want to be archaeologists, we want to have good jobs, and have the opportunity to innovative research. And okay, maybe just a little bit because we don't want to grow up. =) Mostly grad school isn't a cake-walk though. PhD's are hard, and they take a long time. If they were easy, I suppose everyone would have one. There is one thing I know I will miss thought when I am done, and that is the other grad students. I have made some amazing friends, I share an office with many of them, and as one of them said: "they make the good times fun and the bad times tolerable." I have to admit, it is a little scary to think about going out into the real world without them.

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I added a photo of the cake I made for Valentine's. This was my first time using fondant to decorate - more about that in another post!

I have Early Kachemak Midden!

Emily digging in midden from 1000 years ago

Patrick recording the stratigraphy from midden deposits dated to about 3400 years ago

If you read our blog in August, you know that I was working with the Alutiiq Museum on their Community Archaeology Dig at Mitksqaaq Angayuk. The excavation was part of my dissertation research. Among other things, we were hoping to find preserved shell and bones from the Early Kachemak time period (4000-2000 years ago). Several people have asked me recently whether we have gotten our radiocarbon dates back. The answer is, yes, the Alutiiq Museum has gotten the dates back and they make me quite happy!

The midden from the "Trench" is definitely Early Kachemak. The radiocarbon date from a charcoal sample indicates that the top shell layer was deposited about 3400 years ago (in the second photo, that's the white layer just above Patrick's head). At the bottom of the archaeological deposits is a brown volcanic ash and below that is the old beach gravel. We know that the brown volcanic ash is 3800 years old (based on dates from other sites in Kodiak), so we now know that all those layers of shell and bone were deposited in less than 400 years, from 3400 to 3800 years ago. This is great news for me because Early Kachemak sites are rare in Kodiak. Even more rare are Early Kachemak sites with preserved shell and bone.

I am particularly interested in this time period because it represents a significant change in the economy and settlement patterns of the Alutiiq people. Before 4000 years ago, people on Kodiak lived in small groups and moved often, following seasonally-available food resources. Around 4000 years ago, at the beginning of the Early Kachemak time period, people began to build more permanent houses, mass harvest salmon in nets, and smoke/dry and store salmon and probably other food products for the winter. Many archaeologists have studied this transition, but due to the lack of sites with fauna, we don't have a very good idea of what people were eating. I am hoping that my dissertation research can help answer some questions about the economic changes that happened after 4000 years ago in Kodiak.

I was also hoping to find midden from between 800 and 200 years ago. In the top photo, you can see Emily digging in a test pit that we hoped would be from that time period. The date turned out to be about 1000 years old. While that's a little older than I had hoped, it will have to work! Now I have samples of fauna from 3400 years ago, 1000 years ago, and 150 years ago. Hopefully I will be able to say something interesting about how diets changed through time in Chiniak Bay.