Life as Collegiate Traveling Faculty

One of the biggest challenges of being a Collegiate Traveling Faculty is the first week of a new session at a new location.  To give you an idea, I'm going to write of my experiences this past week as I started a new 8-week session teaching at three bases (one army and two navy) on mainland Japan.

Having spent 3 days during previous weeks learning where the three bases are located and what gates should be used to access the education centers on those bases, I thought I was somewhat prepared to begin the week.

On Monday I left our apartment at 15:00 for a class that starts at 19:30 so that I would have plenty of time to find everything and get to the Ed center in time to copy my syllabus.  Fortunately, the google maps on my brand new iphone 6 (purchased with a new 2-year contract solely for the purpose of having guidance during my drives) got me right to the front gate of the base.  Of course, once I passed onto the base, the gps went blank because no gps has any directions for the bases.  But this base is fairly small and I eventually found the Education Center at about 16:00.  Well, since it was MLK holiday, the UMUC field offices were closed and there was no access to a copier.  So I wandered down the street to McDonald's and grabbed some dinner and listened to the classical music being piped over the speakers at this obviously cultured military base.  Eventually, I made my way back to the Education Center and sat in the hallway outside of Classroom #2 waiting for a writing class to finish.  At 19:25 I was able to enter the classroom, along with all of my students who arrived and waited in the narrow hallway.  Class went well and we finished sometime between 21:45 and 22:10.  I can't divulge that we actually finished early because knowledge that we actually ended a few minutes early could jeapordize the contract my employer has with the Department of Defense.  I then set my google maps to take me back to my "home".  For some reason, Siri, or whoever runs the gps in my phone decided that it would be too easy to just back-track the straightforward path we came on and I ended up driving down many small, winding Japanese streets before entering the expressway at a completely different on ramp than I had exited on my trip in.  But once on the expressway, I was home in about an hour of total travel time (and $32 roundtrip in toll fees--reimbursable, of course).

On Tuesday, I left the apartment with an Econ professor riding as passenger because her class starts the same time as mine.  Even though I have a 2 hour lab after our classes, she said she wanted to ride with me to see what the car commute was like and compare it with the 4-5 train commute.  My trusty google maps said it would take about 2 hours to get to the base we were going to so we left at 13:00 for classes that started at 16:40  (yes, that's nearly four hours for the two that we would probably need, but once again, we didn't know if the traffic, etc. would really get us there in 2 hours).  With only one minor error on the way, when I failed to accurately follow the instructions to take an exit, so we ended up going to the next exit 7 km down the road and doing a very sharp U-turn after exiting the toll booths to get back onto the expressway in the opposite direction, we did get to the base at about 15:20.  I went up to the UMUC offices and talked with the Field Reps and got the key to the high school lab where I would be teaching the lab portion of the class.  I was told I couldn't get into the lab until 16:00 hours which would give me 40 minutes to do lab prep and get back to the multi-storied multi-functional building where the Ed center is located for my 16:40 class.  I drove over to the high school and waited until exactly 16:00 and went looking for the lab.  The Field Rep had given very good directions to find the science lab, but the door to the lab was locked and the silver piece of metal that looked more like a dog tag than a key, wouldn't fit into the lab door lock (after all, the lock was a alphanumeric keypad!)  Eventually, a Japanese lady came and opened up the door for me and gave me many instructions in Japanese, the only part of which I understood to be "slam the door hard" because of the gestures and sounds she made.  I looked around the room and could tell it was a neglected physics/chemistry lab and began to feel somewhat frustrated about the small space I would be teaching biology lab to 19 students in.  Ok, so I began preparing the lab material which I had purchased at the 100 yen store (dollar store) and brought with me in a cardboard box, all the while thinking, that if I leave and go teach my class, how am I going to get back in the lab, especially if I have obediently slammed the door.  I emailed the Field Reps and asked 1) do they have a code for the lock and 2) is the classroom I'm teaching in available after my class (starting the think of a back-up plan).  The answer came back no to both questions, so I asked if I could hold lab in the classroom this first day (but forgot to send the message).  So I threw everything back into the box and got into my car with five minutes to go before class started.  This base isn't very big but it has many tall buildings and some huge grey ships and in the dark everything was starting to look the same--scary!  Somehow I missed a turn and was lining up in traffic to leave the base.  I know I didn't want to do that, partly because Ellen and I had driven around in circles for about an hour trying to get out of that part of the city the previous week when we came and scouted out the area.  So I quickly did a turn and drove through an area that I'm pretty sure was "restricted" and eventually came to a street that I recognized as the one leading in from the main gate I had originally entered.  So I began looking for the large parking garage that was next to the building with the Ed Center.  I pulled into the first parking garage and went up to the fourth level so I could enter the adjacent building and be right by my classroom.  Having parked the car and grabbed my computer bag, box of lab supplies, and whatever else, I ran into the building connected to the parking garage.  It had white walls instead of blue and I immediately knew I was in the wrong building.  I started asking people where the "xxxx Center" is and got five blank stares.  I thought, wow, you work on this base and you don't even know that, but it turns out many of the people were transients, only stationed there while their "unit" was in port.  Eventually someone pointed me down the street to the building I needed.  I rushed there as quickly as I could, but as I was crossing the last walkway to get into the building, the bugle started playing and I had to stop for the anthem (bringing back memories of being on BYU campus for the morning or afternoon playing of the national anthem and stopping to pay respect).  My concern, however, was that I figured the anthem probably played at 17:00 hours so I was now 15 minutes late.  Yes, it did and I was!  By then I was completely frustrated at the logistics of my teaching situation.  I had a mere 40 minutes to do any and all lab prep for that lab class before I had to miraculously be back in the classroom for lecture, and then after lecture only have 10 minutes for me and the students to go across base to the high school and get to the lab for a 2 hour lab.  How was that ever going to work?!?!  Fortunately, the rest of the evening went surprisingly well, with lecture going from when I got into the room until 19:20, followed by a makeshift lab on the scientific method in the classroom until about 21:30.  The drive home went without any errors and the Econ professor decided that she would take me up on the offer to ride with me every Tues and Thurs rather than getting an ulcer and whatever else she was afraid of getting by commuting via train.  We were home by 23:30--a short 11 hour work day!

On Wednesday, I decided to go into my class early and stop by the other military base where the lab on Friday would be.  I had earlier asked the Regional Education manager if my lab was held at an Ed center or a high school and she, being new to the Region, assured me that since she had only signed arrangements for one high school, the one I had used the day before, that the other one must be at the Ed Center.  So when I showed up at the Ed Center and met the Field Reps, I was told they would take me "over to the high school" and show me the lab.   They gave me two keys--one for the outside door and one for the lab door so I figured we were off to a better start.  I followed the Field Rep to the high school and up to the biology lab.  The teacher came out into the hallway, her class still in session, and said, "I don't think the arrangement is going to work" and told the field rep that he needed to go talk with the Principal. It literally felt like we were being "sent to the office".  After we left, the Field Rep reassured me that the Education Officer for the base had made all of the arrangements and that it was a done deal.  But I could tell at least the teacher wasn't happy about having me and my students there as their "guests".  I left the Field Rep to deal with the administrators and drove on to the base where my Monday and Wednesday classes are held and told him to email me before Friday if anything changed.   Class went well that evening, but since I had arrived several hours early again, I found myself staring at the food options in the food court wondering if I would have to eat the same fast food for a third day in a row (it seems that the same fast food joints are found on all of these bases!)  One of my students saw me and came and asked a question about the quiz and then I asked him if there was any place else to eat on base.  He said there's a Japanese restaurant on base near the shoppette and a restaurant by the golf course.  I drove to that one first and it was closed and eventually found some good Oyako Don at the small Japanese restaurant which turned out to be a one-man show (cook, server, host, etc.)  On the way home from that class, the google map tried doing the same circuitous route it had taken me on Monday, so I stayed on a larger road to force her into making a new route.  After missing a turn and being routed around the block, I pulled up to an intersection near the expressway.  She told me to go left, but I could tell that the road I was entering was an on-ramp and I could see the cars on the other side of a barricade going to my right so I turned right onto this three lane "on-ramp".  Mistake of the greatest degree!  I immediately saw three lanes of headlights come right at me.  I swerved and tried doing a U-turn but didn't have enough space nor time and just sat there praying that all three lanes of cars would stop and not T-bone me.  Fortunately they did and I finished my Y-point turn and headed in front of them feeling like a total fool and scared out of my whits.  The rest of the ride home I was on pins and needles and overdosed on adrenalin.

So Thursday came and it was time for the long 2-hour commute to the base where I do lecture and lab back to back.  The commute went perfectly; the class went well.  I dismissed my class at 19:00 (twenty minutes early) so we could all get over to the high school.  The code worked on the keypad (well actually, one of my students who subs at the high school had to enter the code to get it to work since I couldn't manage it) but lab went well.  The students saw what they needed through the microscopes and we were back on the expressway for our return commute by 21:15 and home by 23:00, a mere 9 hr workday.

Finally, Friday arrived and I only had to commute 45 minutes to the base with the high school lab where I'm not wanted.  I parked by the football field and saw that the soccer team was working away.  I just about bagged the lab class to watch soccer, especially since I had seen someone holding the door open with a group of my students standing around.  Immediately I figured they were being told that the school couldn't be used, but when I got there, it was someone who was just irritated that she didn't know anything about the arrangement but let me in, especially when I used my key to unlock the door so she wouldn't have to keep holding it open.  We went up and unloaded everything from the box and got the students going on the two labs they had to do.  It all went well and by 21:00 I was back at home having successfully completed the first week.

And that's what teaching as a Collegiate Traveling Faculty is like!  Oh, while I was teaching that last period, I received an email--assignments for the next 8 week session.  I will teach two classes and two labs (that's the norm) but they are both at my home base with the both lectures on Monday and Wednesday and both labs on Saturday in a dedicated lab facility at the Education Center!  No long commutes, no high school labs,  and only three days with classes/labs.  It all balances out in the end.  I guess!