Know Your Profs is an ongoing series of profiles on the instructors at Camosun College. Every issue we ask a different instructor at Camosun the same 10 questions in an attempt to get to know them a little better.
Do you have an instructor that you want to see interviewed in the paper? Email editor@nexusnewspaper.com and we’ll add your instructor to our list of teachers to talk to.
This issue we talked to Camosun English and Creative Writing prof Candace Fertile about the best profession in existence, feeling a kangaroo’s pouch, and treating education like a business.
1. What do you teach and how long have you been at Camosun?
English and creative writing; about 20 years.
2. What do you personally get out of teaching?
Teaching is one of the best professions in existence, especially for someone who likes to keep on learning.
3. What’s one thing you wish your students knew about you?
I think they know everything necessary. As a piece of complete trivia, well, I once put my hand in the pouch of a kangaroo. It was warm and smooth.
4. What’s one thing you wish they didn’t know about you?
No idea—you’d have to ask them.
5. What’s the best thing that’s happened to you as a teacher here?
So many good things have happened. It’s hard to mention just one, but I am always happy when students say they are looking forward to reading more. Overall, the best thing is seeing the success of a student who has been struggling or who started with little confidence.
6. What’s the worst thing that’s happened to you as a teacher here?
Nothing terrible has happened. Oh, wait—Infosilem.
7. What do you see in the future of postsecondary education?
I’m afraid that the focus on job training from the current government is damaging. And the funding situation—lack of it—means that institutions have to behave like businesses. That is wrong. Education is an investment in the future, an investment that pays off in many more ways than the financial. To reduce education to an economic transaction says to me that people who think that way have probably had an inadequate education and have a flawed understanding of what’s important in life.
8. What do you do to relax on the weekends?
Read, walk near the water, play tennis, have dinner with friends.
9. What is your favourite meal?
I like all kinds of food, especially meals shared with friends and family. But not Jell-O. I hate Jell-O. Food should not be that colour, nor should it move.
10. What’s your biggest pet peeve?
At the moment, I’d have to say car alarms. As I’m typing this answer, a car alarm is blaring in the parking lot outside my office. I think car alarms are pointless.