@PshrinkEmeritus as was. #Retired #Clinical #Psychologist and proudly non-renewed #Adjunct #Professor of #Psychology living and working on stolen Mvskogee/Cherokee/Yuchi land.
Sweary, "unprofessional" behavior a specialty.
Neurospicy, cis, asexual old fart still finding joy sharing #Psychology as The Docsplainer over at https://docwood.wordpress.com where #Disability, sobriety, #Feminism, #Buddhism, and #SocialJustice inform my #Writing
| avatar | bitmoji of older white cis woman with dishwater-blonde hair cut short, blue eyes, and glasses. |
| Where even am I | Cherokee, Mvskogee, & Yuchi lands in the southeast |
| The Docsplainer | https://docwood.wordpress.com |
| banner image | sunrise over hills at Pine Log WMA, White, GA, USA |
From Fear to Confidence
I had more fears than you can shake a stick at when I first started teaching, and the best thing I ever did to get over them all was to establish the habit of written reflections on everything I did, in or out of the classroom.
https://docwood.wordpress.com/2026/06/09/from-fear-to-confidence/
Part of my job as an introductory psychology instructor to classes filled mostly with first-semester freshmen or even dual-enrolled high school students was to teach self-confidence. My course was consciously designed to provide opportunities every single week for this!
https://docwood.wordpress.com/2026/06/08/the-best-way-to-build-self-confidence/
Last week, I overheard a woman on the phone saying she was switching to DuckDuckGo because you can “opt out of using AI.”
“Google just isn’t Google anymore,” she said
DuckDuckGo installs are up 30% as users reject being ‘force-fed’ Google’s AI Search | TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/26/duckduckgo-installs-are-up-30-as-users-reject-being-force-fed-googles-ai-search/
Weirdly, these musings triggered by a massacre in Ancillary Justice and Breq's musings on it some 20 years later.... Leckie fans will recognize the passages.
Am I comparing higher ed to a massacre? You be the judge 😆
Did I make a difference? Perhaps a great deal. Maybe none. There are too many unknowns. I could only take my chances, place my bets, and hope that one kid who could be tipped in the right direction was.
The way I figure it, if I'd done otherwise that one kid would *not* have had their eyes opened, in however minor a way, so how *could* I do otherwise?
And so here we are, unemployed. And if truth be known, relieved. It's been exhausting, discouraging, demoralizing. I'm tired, Boss.
7/7
Fin
I can't change that course more than one student at a time. And hope that there is a ripple effect: A student who knows something now that they didn't know before, knows that they know it, and isn't afraid to share it, to act on it.
6/?
I'm not the one to commit the one act or make the one speech that changes everything. Bigger picture? Higher Ed goes right on destroying itself in pursuit of the almighty dollar, MAGA goes right on destroying education generally. Kids go right on not only not being taught but being actively lied to and encouraged, if only indicrectly, to weaken their own minds with AI slop.
5/?
I do hope I made a difference to the two dozen or so over the last two years who at least appeared to be taking their educations seriously. I hope that mine were the small actions that, cumulatively, over time, or in great numbers -- think If Everybody Did, my favorite ethics text -- steer the course of events in ways too chaotic or subtle to trace, again quoting from Ann Leckie's Raadch series.
4/?
Christine Hall
Dr. D. Elisabeth Glassco
Stefan Edward Jones