Employed

Back in December, I left teaching. If you've read this blog for a significant portion of the 3+ years I've had it, you'll know that I've done so before. My motivation each time was slightly different, but I will say this: the outcome has been the same. I've come back to teaching. Again.

I gave the job hunt a good 10 months or so. I had few promising leads in that time, a few interviews, and a couple jobs that I would have been really excited to do. Alas, none of them panned out. As it became more and more apparent that the dream job I applied to and interviewed for probably wasn't going to hire me, I intensified my search and began to reconsider teaching. If I didn't have a job by year's end, I finally decided, I'd go back to teaching. Within about a week of getting the rejection from would-be dream job, I sent an e-mail to my department chair and told her I'd be up for teaching in the spring. That afternoon, I got a call--turns out there was a second-eight-week composition class. So here I am. Less than a month from now, I will be back to a familiar grind.

It's a good time to be back too. Enrollment is way the hell up at the community college and sister campuses, so while campus services are being strained to meet the demand, it also means there are lots of classes--and more classes than instructors to fill them. As anyone who's ever adjuncted knows, that's a situation far more rare and favorable than the reverse though not likely to change for a while if the economy doesn't pick up.

I still have mixed feelings about the whole deal, but the mix is... unexpectedly weighted with optimism. While I feel a twinge of regret that I didn't come around to this decision in time to have a full fall course load, I also know that I needed to come around it in my own time. Some people can be told the burner is hot; I've always had to burn myself to figure that out.

The last month or so has been a time of reconsideration on multiple fronts. I have changed my mind on a few important things, but those changes only came about after carefully weighing the risks, the benefits, my options, and the situation at hand. The balance of the scales happened to come up a little differently in the reassessment. So be it. I've learned a few things about myself from the experience, and for that at least, I am grateful.

So here's to a new beginning... and maybe even more blog fodder in the forseeable future!

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Job-related thoughts

Scattered. Apologies. The brain vomit needs to go somewhere.

Since I graduated with my master's, I fell quite by accident into adjuncting. Before that point, I swore I wouldn't do it. It was poor paying, too much work, and too up-in-the-air. But I had a master's in a liberal art and little job experience, and the offer fell into my lap with the department chair practically begging me to work there. I took it.

I've sworn I'd leave it multiple times over. For one semester, I did. And I came back. This semester, midway through, I swore again that I'd leave. And I've resigned myself to not quitting, to keep teaching. I figured last time when I quit that it wasn't actually my job that was the biggest stressor but several glaring issues with my personal life. Granted, those factors affected my teaching ability, but I've learned to distinguish where the problems were and correctly identify what needs "fixing" through life decisions.

This time it's different. I was ready to teach and am willing to teach--but it may not be financially viable this time. I need a "real" job, one that doesn't leave me high and dry when budget cuts crimp the campus, one that doesn't leave me scrambling to find employment to supplement my current employment when I only get a couple classes.

One change at a time, I told myself. That may get me nowhere but the poorhouse. Onward with the job applications then. The market sucks, but if I get nowhere in the search, I'm still at least committed to two classes (one of which may or may not make...) and a bit of pocket change from my hourly, minimum-wage tutoring gig. And if the search is successful, well, I have no doubt that my department will find any number of willing, able, and under-employed workers to take those classes. My boss at the tutoring gig is more mentor than boss, and she's been very supportive in terms of "if you work for us, I'd love to have you, but if you find something better, great!"

No job will be perfect; I understand that. But a livable income and job security are not unreasonable expectations.

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Unsent letters: Student edition

Hey you,

Yes, short of failing your portfolio requirements spectacularly, you are on course for a solid A. This is a good thing because you are a good writer and a great addition to the class. That said, your grade and exemplary marks have nothing to do with the constant, how shall we say, sycophancy. Seriously. You'd be making those grades without the appeals to my ego, and indeed, I'd prefer you not. Ah well. Our paths shall part shortly, and you'll do me proud in your Comp 2 class regardless.

Hey you,
Yes, you of the frantic, panicked e-mails, so worried about failing. Take a deep breath and then another. Now, relax a bit. Are you going to make an A? No. But you'll be darned close, and I'm proud of you. You've been struggling with the consequences of difficult life choices, and you work hard, and you write well, and I'm proud of all that. So give yourself a pat on the back for having made it through your first semester successfully. You did it.

And you. Hoo boy, where do I start with you?
You've been a pain in my ass all semester. I really don't care if you fail to turn in papers because, hey, it's one less for me to grade in any given stack. I also don't particularly care that you show up when you show up and don't when you don't feel like it. Again, this means less work for me. I do greatly despise it when you schedule yourself for tutorial times--and then do not show up. Not once, not twice, not even three times--but consistently, even double-booking times during the last paper when worthier students would have shown up. And now, you want short-notice accommodation for testing services to take your final. Fine. Enjoy it. I highly suspect that when I am on campus next to pick up the completed exam, it will be likewise not completed. And that's fine too. Know why? Your grade is going to be the same regardless of whether you take it or not. Cheers.

And you and you,
I've enjoyed having you both in class. Different classes, but you're remarkably similar--I see the same work ethic and constant attention in class, the regular if perhaps slightly unpunctual attendance. You're neither of you the brightest ones I've ever had, but that hard work and attention to detail and the drafting process makes up for a lot. You're right--that final paper sure did have a lot less inked-in corrections on it. Congrats. You'll do me proud in your next class, I think.

And last but not l--er. Nevermind.
You never turned in a single paper over the course of the whole semester that came anywhere near meeting the assignment criteria. Your quiz results were clearly pulled out of your ass in an attempt to bluff me, and while you were present in nearly all classes and had a most pleasant demeanor, you still are failing. And you know what the kicker is? I'm disappointed. You had an awesome semester's research topic that could have yielded some fascinating papers, and if you could just channel a bit of that strong voice into more appropriate academic writing, you could have produced some great papers. Perhaps you'll do so for your next Comp 1 teacher. I hope so for his or her--and your own--sake.

O RLY?

So... I got an e-mail from the coach of one of the athletes in my remedial writing class. He said this student had informed him that he was currently making a C in my class as finals week approaches, and could I verify this information?

Oh. Man.

I nixed several responses like "Are you freakin' kidding me?" and "He has never been on course for a C in my class" or the short, sweet, "WTF?! Seriously?!" and definitely bypassed the flippant "Oh, good one" that crossed my mind.

I settled on opening the e-mail with the more tactful, "Unfortunately, that information is NOT correct," followed by enough info to convey that this student has all but flunked already.

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They'll miss me when I'm gone

The classes I teach at my alma mater are remedial writing classes. Part of that package entails extensive conferencing and multiple drafts for most paragraphs and essays assigned. It's work-intensive, and they tend to hate me when they turn in one draft, get it all bloodied up in red (or blue or purple or magenta...) ink, resubmit it, get it back with more bloody marks (enough of them in the same exact places, remarkably), and then turn in a final draft, which I usually manage to maul as well.

They hate me, I tell you, hate me. I practically felt the daggers from one student during her conference today.

But then in class, as I explained that the last in-class assignment would have less direction from me and less intensive editing unless they had specific questions about specific sentences or words, etc., I told them that once they got to the composition classes, they'd get a lot less one-on-one direction on their papers.

"So can we come bring them to you to look over for us?" one student asked.

Another landmark

A former student of mine posted a Facebook status update today, saying that she had applied for graduation in May.

That means the kiddos who were new freshmen when I taught in my first semester of teaching are getting ready to graduate and head out into the world. It's kind of a funny feeling. And a daunting one.

How not to impress your instructor

Student asking, in preparation for their 100-point test on Friday: "What if I show up hungover from the night before? 'Cause I probably will be."

My response: "Not my problem."

It would be a shame if a silly thing like a 100-point exam got in the way of college partying.

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A riddle

Q: How do you ensure your students don't get perfect scores on their easy quiz?

A: Write a difficult question like, "After you have printed out this quiz, write your name and draw a smiley face."

Frustrating.

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So this is how it starts...

Today in class, in passing, the topic of the '80s and '80s fashion came up. It's coming back, someone mentioned.

Yes, I agreed, and as far as I'm concerned, it could go right back where it came from. One of my returning students agreed.

Another student, however, piped up, "I like that stuff. I think it's cool. I wish I'd been a kid in the '80s."

Oi vey.

One student of mine is... quite a character.

The third day of class, she came in and looked around blankly, unsure whether she was in the right place. I asked her the name of the class she was supposed to be in; it coincided with mine. I asked if it was supposed to be at 10:00; it was. She was still unconvinced until she looked around.

"The big guy!" she said, spotting the guy she'd been sitting next to for the previous two class sessions. "I remember you!"

I should have taken it as a sign. And I did take it as a sign... of her ditziness.

What I missed was the sign of no brain-mouth filter. Bless her heart, she likes to call out answers. They are frequently wrong answers or requests for information that she would have received had she been listening to my directions, but she does have great spirit. However, she rarely stops at the answers, rambling into whatever other thoughts flit through her mind--an aside or request for confirmation from her classmate, a personal question that I don't care to answer, and other irrelevant bits of fluff.

Of course, the conference will not be a "talk less for the sake of my sanity" talk. We will discuss how as much as I appreciate her enthusiasm, it is important for other people to get a chance to talk. I expect frequent reminders will be in order though...

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There's a new one

I have had increasingly less to say about teaching as time goes on, due in large part to few things striking me as particularly novel anymore. If you factor out the semester I took off, this is the start of my fourth year of teaching; with the time off accounted for, it's the latter half of my third year.

Even the more egregious student behavior seems blase after you've seen it a few times.

That said, never before yesterday have I been in the middle of the class, lecturing, no less, writing on the board, and been interrupted by a student coming into my classroom asking for directions. From me.

At first, I thought she might have been one of my students, straggling in very, very late, an hour into a 75-minute class. She looked at me expectantly, like she had a question, and granted, I do not readily recognize student faces yet, so I asked what she needed. She asked where to find a location for a room and building I did not recognize as being on the campus. I was a little surprised by the interruption of class for directions, so instead of telling her we were in the middle of class, I instead said I didn't recognize the location. She pulled out her planner and showed me the class name, room, and time she was looking for.

"Oh," I told her. "That's this room. In half an hour."

"OK," she said, and walked right back out.

I have to give that class credit for not bursting into laughter as I would have been tempted to do were I watching the proceedings. Still, this incident is one of several signs I've been seeing that seem to suggest a more oblivious student population than previous semesters. I may have more stories yet.

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Too bad my birthday has already passed...

Ah, the Internet has everything. I've joked about wanting a "WTF" stamp for student papers.

Turns out I could have one if I wanted, thanks to the creative folks at Etsy.

Oh man. And there's "FAIL" and "epic FAIL."

I dare not. I have nothing near tenure and might actually use them...

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Sets of three, leave them be

My semester's gotten off to a rough start. Teaching two different classes on two different campuses on different days has extended the first day's madness to first two days' madness.

I'm also starting to wonder if three is an unlucky number for me, which is a bit saddening. It could be a bit of identification, but I've always been partial to odd numbers. Until this week, I quite liked three.

The first three-related mishap pertained to my syllabi. I had campus #1's syllabi copied off and was beginning to staple them when I realized I had run off too many copies; no sweat, thought I. I shall put the extras in a separate stack. I was proud of myself, even, for having caught and corrected my mistakes.

Until I realized that on my way out in the morning, I had grabbed one class's syllabi... and the stack of unstapled extras. That one took a bit of last-minute sense-talking and reassuring from my mentor to correct the problem, but I got over it and had a more or less decent day after that.

My second three-related woe follows a parallel track. The item in question this time was a set of keys. On Monday, I picked up my keys from campus #2; at the time, I was borrowing my mother's car while mine was in the shop. Once I had my car back, I left her the keys on her dresser. It was one of three sets of keys that were in my purse--my car and home keys, my office keys, and the borrowed car keys.

Yes, by this time you probably guessed it--I left my mom the office keys and still had her car key. Luckily, I was able to throw myself upon the mercy of both the department secretary and my officemate to get around the inconvenience, but I sure felt dumb. The car keys, also, were a spare set and so caused no inconvenience there.

I swear, I am developing all the scatter-brained professorial tendencies and none of the accompanying wisdom and stature.

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Here we go again

Tomorrow, a meeting and the copying of syllabi. Tuesday, all hell breaks loo--

Aherm. Classes start again. I am eager and enthusiastic to mold young writers. And get paid. And have a more concrete schedule and purpose to dress in clothing nicer than merely jeans and T-shirts. And get paid. And, aw heck, I'm really trying to get myself excited here, and all I've managed so far is a "meh."

Reflection on a semester past

As far as semesters go, Spring 2009 was not bad at all. I went into it with a few interrelated goals.

One key goal was to remember to keep time for myself. As goals go, it's a bit abstract--so I made it quantifiable--vowed to keep crocheting a part of my life during the semester and not just between semesters. Successful? Yes. I crocheted in evenings, I crocheted between classes if I had no grading stack, I crocheted during down time at my tutoring job. Creating something--whether it's as small as a bookmark or as big as a tote bag or as incomplete as a row on a long-in-progress blanket--is... soothing. And I felt the difference from other semesters.

I also had a goal to try a new way of structuring my Composition II course. It had some success and showed me a couple things that still needed adjustment. What I got right was breaking down the research process into smaller steps. What needed adjustment was the sequence. Duly noted. I also spent more time on MLA. Some students still left me baffled by their works cited pages, and enough still struggled with in-text citations, but they seemed improved over previous semesters' work.

I also had a goal to keep from taking things personally. It's still a struggle, but I'm getting there. It smarted when a student took her parents to my department chair over a grade issue (and, frankly, rattled me a bit in spite of a supportive chair), but the sting faded eventually. Again, I looked over my students' evals only once. One thought I swayed when I talked, another thought I was in the job for the money, and one thought my lectures weren't useful. I remember those, but I also remember that each of those is generally offset by at least one claiming exactly the opposite. I won't be every student's favorite instructor, and that's fine. There is always at least one I can get to.

Am I a great teacher yet? Not likely. I'm still young and relatively inexperienced. But I've got potential, and some day I may be a good one if I can keep my sanity and continue to refine my techniques and approaches. So far, so good.

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Old-fasioned?

The meaning of grades, as I understand them, is as follows:

A - Exceptional! Damn, but you rocked your instructor's socks off!
B - Pretty good. Better than most, but could've used more effort.
C - Average. You did the work competently, but little snowflake, you didn't go much beyond that.
D - Not passing, but you didn't quite flunk.
F - FAIL.

As a student, I had the niggling sensation that my "A" work wasn't really exceptional. I knew how little work went into those essays I dashed off at the last minute; if anything, I felt that I deserved lower grades than what I got. The grades I feel the proudest of are those few Bs from professors who didn't accept my half-assed work as exceptional, and the even rarer As that I had to work for.

As an instructor, I strive to hold my students to a higher standard. I want my A students to know that they earned that grade. Unfortunately, I just don't seem to get many students like the kind I was...

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She shoots; she scores!

This time last semester, when I was teaching at Alma Mater U, I had to cancel one day of classes for department-wide assessment scoring. I was, shall we say, less than enthused about it because part of it involved also giving up Saturday to assess remedial-level writing. Total buzz kill, y'know?

In one class, my students were wondering why exactly they had the day off. So, in a voice meant to drum up false enthusiasm as much for myself as them, I blurted out a little too loudly and a little too enthusiastically, "Remember those essays you wrote a couple classes ago? A bunch of us instructors are gonna get together and score!" By the time I could hastily add "essays," the class was dissolved in giggles, and my composure was gone as well. (It didn't help that that was the day we were talking about dangling modifiers...)

This semester, even though I am not teaching there, my former boss called and asked if I'd be interested in the scoring. After a bit of hesitation, I decided on it. That was today, and it was actually not as painful as the first time. I got paid, got a free lunch, and got to catch up with Awesome Grad School Cohort in the process.

It was, indeed, quite... satisfying.

Today I love my job

After the first assignment, which centers around a reading from their textbook, my students will be choosing a topic to write the rest of their papers on, culminating in a researched position paper by semester's end. Today we talked about potential research topics. In one class, I pretty much had to pull teeth to get anyone to generate topics. My second class? Not so much a problem.

They covered a lot of ground, between current events and ongoing debates. Church-state issues, English as the official language, movie rating system effectiveness, and stem cell research--sound research topics.

Of course, some were also off the wall.

"Aliens!" (On the off-limits list, I told them, but space exploration funding went on the board.)

"Bestiality!" (Not on the off-topics list, but not recommended. I'd want a detailed outline well in advance, figuring that would deter 'em. Calling their bluffs usually works. Also, awkward moment: "What's bestiality?" from a different student)

"Pirates!"

"What kind of pirates?" I asked, "File sharing or high seas?"

"Both!" They mentioned a couple high-conflict areas where pirates really were problematic. I was writing topics on the board quickly, trying to keep up with the rapid fire of ideas.

"How about Jack Sparrow?" one clown asked.

"As much as I'd appreciate a cover sheet with Johnny Depp on it, no," I said.

"Celebrity obsession!" someone else called out.

I paused before writing that one down. "Well played," I had to say.

Murphy may have a laugh, but...

I'm going to take the risk of "jinxing" good fortune, but I have reason to believe that my first set of papers will be promising. The drafts I'm beginning to see are rather decent, and I've spent more time on the set-up than I have previously.

I did get a chuckle at the student who submitted a draft that was nearly twice as long as the assignment called for. Ah, but the aspiring academics will out themselves...

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Full of win.

Pardon the short post, but I think having completed all my grading in a timely manner and being done with this semester warrants a gratuitously self-promoting post.

So, go Twit. You are awesome indeed for not having throttled a single student. And when that guy whined and bitched about improving his writing, and you stood your ground firmly and only a bit impatiently, and he finally straightened up to produce better writing than he had been doing? Good going there, too. And lastly, for maintaining your sanity under grading duress, you are indeed to be admired, you overeducated twit, you. You're just going to have a great winter break, I know it, and when spring semester rolls around, you are going to kick ass with those syllabus revisions. You are full of win indeed (and only the least bit schizo for addressing yourself in second-person point of view).

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