Abstract
Hard-working, frazzled, and weary educators will find encouragement, the means to embrace the rhythms of the academic year, and thrive in their calling through the pages of this book. Organized with wisdom for each month beginning with the school year start in August (based on a Northern Hemisphere schedule), each chapter focuses on a broad theme for thriving during that month of the academic calendar. The introduction summarizes the book’s main ideas, listing twelve “Things about the Scholarly Life I Learned the Hard Way” (p. 3–4) that are unpacked in the chapters that follow.
The August chapter uses the metaphor of a local plant, the prairie carrot, to illustrate her annual challenge: when the lace of the prairie carrots appears, it means summer is over and it is time to be ready for the semester. When you “embrace the lace” (the chapter title), you need to embrace the students and embrace win-win thinking. Embracing the students is not a literal physical embrace, but an embrace of preparation, planning, and prayer for the students entrusted to us in the coming semester. The win-win thinking includes how students are welcomed to class as the semester begins, helping them want to come to class, and thinking about who does the work. I have over-simplified her argument due to the length of the review, but I’ll summarize by saying that, even though I have been an educator at both the K-12 and higher education levels for about 40 years now, I found this chapter inspirational and one to which I need to return each fall as I begin to think about the new semester.
Another powerful chapter for me was October, which stressed the importance of saying no to some things to say yes to the most important things. The chapter’s title, “Women in the No: Saying No in Order to Say Yes,” may be off-putting to male readers, though the important lesson of saying no so that you can say yes to the right things is relevant to all people. Lake’s discussion is particularly focused on women, noting “what women quickly discover when they arrive on campus is that if you have minority status of any sort, you get called on more often to do everything” (p. 45). As a woman, I have also experienced what she describes, and have seen it impact my female colleagues of color in even more significant ways. If male readers can get past the chapter title (“does this apply to me?”), they can benefit from the explicit message of learning to say no and increase their understanding of their female colleague’s experiences.
Lake’s view on northern Illinois winters shapes the January through April chapters, and even though I, too, live in northern Illinois, I found that I had to keep mentally stepping back to ask “what’s the message here” because of its presentation within repeated references to the cold, dark winter dreariness. The lessons of identifying and reading works that nourish your soul, finding ways to press on during the winter (the February chapter highlights the Danish practice of hygge), and being wise about willpower by reducing decision-making are important for flourishing, but were buried for me in the frequent references to winter snow. I wonder how I would have reacted if I had read these chapters when we lived in the tropics.
Although the book references K-12 educators at times, the audience is clearly aimed at faculty at Christian universities, and more specifically female professors in these institutions. If this is your world, you will readily find nourishment and encouragement. If, however, you work in K-12 education or at a non-sectarian university, or if you are male, the lessons are still important (the twelve things, for example) but you will need to make more of an effort to apply them to your context.
Lake’s writing is engaging. Her discipline as an English professor is evident with references to poets and prose as well as her ample vocabulary. The book was easy to read in terms of readability and understanding her argument. However, it was not an easy read in terms of the important ideas presented and the need to pause to think frequently about personal change to promote flourishing. Nevertheless, it is definitely worth the effort.