November 3rd, 2021 —In ancient Greece, a story was told of a man, a trickster of remarkable talent who twice, wiggled his way out of death. As punishment for his hubris and defiance of the gods, he was sentenced to the eternal task of pushing a rock up a hill, only to have the stone roll back down every evening. The man’s name was Sisyphus. In modern times his story symbolizes the repetition of absurd and futile tasks, over and over again. To live a Sisyphean life is to struggle against challenges that never end, especially institutional challenges with little or no meaning.
Many would consider the daily grind of teaching, at its worst, to be a task not unlike that experienced by Sisyphus. The repeated drudgery of testing protocols, attending professional development sessions that dull the creative edge of teaching, and adjusting teaching to match the latest state or local edict can be soul crushing. The main difference between Sisyphus and a teacher is that typically no trickery was involved in the repeated task of pushing educational rocks of limited value. Instead, teachers are willingly following the call to teach into a system that leans away from heart and toward structure, commodification and efficiency. They experience the repetition of menial tasks with the tantalizing hope that one day the goal will be achieved, the rock will stop rolling and personal fulfillment realized.
The exploration of the space between the real, sometimes soul-denying nature of teaching, and the ideal sense of instructional calling is at the center of my work with educators. In a recent session involving faculty and staff, we were exploring the interface between institutional imperatives and the personal passion to serve. As a way into the conversation we read the poem “Perhaps It Would Eventually Erode, But…” by Rosemerry Whatola Trommer. The poem begins; “That rock that we / have been pushing up / that hill—that one / that keeps rolling back down…” In our conversation we individually and collectively knew “that rock”, the one we keep pushing up the hill. We recognized the Sisyphean nature of our work and wondered how it came to be that struggle, not joy or inner-knowing, was a central theme of our work. Why was it that in a profession full of promise for human flourishing that so many are suffering under the rocks of performance reviews, standardized learning and external responsibilities?
As we leaned into the poem, we realized that “We are not / Sisyphus. / This rock is not a punishment. / It’s something we’ve chosen / to push. Who knows why.” We found this insight liberating. We are not eternally bound to the work of rock pushing. We have choices we can make. In fact, as the poet points out, much of what we perceive and experience as the rocks of academia is a choice of our making. But the moment of choice is not always so obvious. It seems that the trick of the institution is to invite us into a state of forgetfulness such that when asked, we can no longer say why we keep pushing rocks. The best we can often muster are instrumental and transactional reasons like promotion, recognition or status. It feels at times that by signing an employment contract we are inadvertently expressing a willingness to carry rocks up the hill. What seems temporary and part of the job, quickly becomes routine and a heavy burden that is increasingly hard to shed.
I recently experienced the gift of a sabbatical from my teaching, research and service. This time of rest and renewal provided opportunities to read, write and care for self. As I returned to work this fall, I realized how many rocks I had stopped pushing. I had become lighter, more fully myself and reconnected to my passion for teaching. As the fall quarter swung into action, I worked to stay away from needlessly pushing rocks. A hard lesson for me because as a child I regularly picked up items around the house, things left out of place by one of my brothers, and returned the object to its proper location. That habit has continued into my professional life where I have the tendency to take up rocks that others have left aside. Sabbatical was a welcome break from that pattern. Now I’m afraid I might slide into old ways of being and begin the Sisyphean task of pushing rocks up the hill. I need to remind myself that, “Now all I want / is to let the rock / roll back to where it belongs, / which is wherever it lands,” As the poet so wisely notes, not all rocks are meant to be carried, some just belong in a particular place. Maybe that is why Sisyphus’s rock kept rolling back down the hill. It just wanted to be left alone to inhabit its rightful place in the world.
One way to tell which rocks are important to our core mission and sense of being and which are not essential is to judge the relative ease or difficulty of pushing. Rocks that are hard to control and feel like drudgery are likely not rocks that a person should continue pushing. They are the ones that are better left to “roll back to where it belongs”. As one colleague noted, if a rock can be pushed with one finger, then you are doing the right work. The message here is to keep your heart focused on the right work, the right calling. It is easy to confuse the job that pays the bills with the work of wholeness. When this occurs pushing rocks becomes a daily task with little or no reward and the passion for the work begins to wane. A job always involves some aspect of the Sisyphus story, these are the rocks we are paid to move and move again. That is why it is called a job. The churning wheels of industrial education and commerce depend on this repetition.
But we don’t have to accept all the rocks the system wishes we would carry. What rocks are you carrying that you really don’t need to load up into your briefcase, backpack or handbag? What might happen to your sense of self if you let some of those rocks roll back down the hill to where they belong? As the poet invites all Symphisians to consider, what might happen if you stopped carrying rocks, “except to discover what / our hands might do / if for once they were no longer / pushing.” If you are no longer pushing rocks, what might you do to advance equity, justice and care for all students? What might you do that feels like the real work of teaching, instead of a job you do?