"I'm taking a class."
It's not really a revolutionary statement, and not all that uncommon to hear. But it's one that still, more than halfway through the semester, doesn't roll off my tongue without a voice inflection that prefaces it with, "This may come as a surprise, but...."
The truth is, it's a surprise to me. I still can't say it without a hint of disbelief in my own statement. I know for people involved in distance learning for a long time, it seems like old hat. But I've come late to the party, so just the idea of being a student again at 44 is taking some getting used to. But the idea of having a classmate that is across the state, across the nation, and even across the world, still boggles my mind when I really stop and think about it.
I haven't quit my job or sold my house. I really haven't interrupted my life in any significant way except maybe to save for tuition and plan my time around class sessions and projects. But the fact that I can be so engaged in something completely virtual is nothing short of amazing for one like me, born on one side of the digital transformational divide, and transported to the other enthusiastically, yet fairly naively.
The language of student, to me, is in itself, a rhetoric of personal agency. It's a rhetoric that says I believe in myself and my ability. It's a rhetoric that says I have something to offer, something to say, and I think someone should listen. It's a rhetoric that refuses to accept that what I am now is all I will ever be.
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