The Pissed Off Professor

This period, I’d like to discuss an oxymoron: what teachers are paid versus what teachers are asked expected to do.

I’ll begin this discussion with one of the techniques every teacher employees in the classroom: asking a question.

Why is it people accept the cliché that no one becomes a teacher for the money?

(I shall now pause for the requisite amount of time to encourage participation prior to calling on someone randomly. . .)

Well?  Why does society accept this?  Why is it that society expects teachers to do what they do out of love?

• Can you imagine a doctor who became a surgeon because he or she loved cutting people open?
• What about the garbage collector who turned to trash out of a desire to be dirty and smelly?
• How about the cop who joined law enforcement because driving fast and shooting guns was appealing—okay bad example, but you get the picture.

One of the things I teach in my courses is critical thinking, and I have noticed a marked decline in this skill over the past few years.  To think altruism is necessary for competent, caring teaching is nothing short of insane.

Let me now reveal a frightening fact to you: my average annual salary as an Adjunct Faculty Member of the Language and Literature Department of Sacramento City College is $20,000.  My position provides me no medical benefits—if I want them, I pay for them, and if I chose to do that, over half of my monthly paycheck would go to this convenience.

• I am paid an hourly wage for the time I am in the classroom teaching, and one hour of office time each week.
• I receive no compensation for preparing my classes, grading my students’ papers, or spending time with my students outside of my office hour.
• Adjunct Faculty Members in the Los Rios Community College district are restricted to teaching a total of 15 units per calendar year.
• Our college composition courses are three-unit classes, and each of these classes affords me 54 hours (minus holidays) of paid time over the course of an 18-week semester.
• Daring my English mind to perform a few basic math maneuvers, I have come to realize this means I can hope to be paid for about 270 hours each year—not quite seven 40-hour work weeks.
• I do not get holiday pay.
• I do not receive paid vacation.
• I do accumulate sick leave.
• Eight years into this, I remain a semester-to-semester contract employee.
• During semester breaks, I have neither parking nor library privileges at my campus.

Set aside the ridiculous amounts of money made by professional athletes and movie stars, and consider how many doctors or garbage collectors or police officers we’d have if they earned my salary.  Then consider that in that list, only becoming a doctor requires a college education that exceeds what I am required to possess.

One obvious solution to this problem (short of throwing in the teaching towel) would seem to be supplementing my income with a second job, but this is trickier than it sounds.  Last semester, I taught a MWF schedule with classes that began at 11 am and ended at 2 pm.  This semester, I teach a MW schedule with a class at 4 pm and a class at 5:30 pm.  Obviously, I have little control over my schedule which precludes my working almost anywhere else.  Additionally, each class I teach requires 10-15 hours outside of the classroom per week for preparation and grading.

This semester, I am being paid to work a seven-hour week, but to do justice to my two courses and my students, I work between twenty-seven and thirty-seven hours weekly.  With that kind of a schedule, there is little room for life, let alone a second job.

I recently realized a dream: the purchase of a hot tub.  It is a small, three-person unit—nothing fancy or extravagant—but certainly a luxury item in my life.  Once the spa is delivered, an electrician will come out to hook it up, and for a job that will take about three hours of his time, he estimates the cost will be $915.00.  For teaching the entire month of March, my gross earnings will be $1,316.00.

This is part of the reason I am Pissed Off.