The Pissed Off Professor

Like I said yesterday, the issue of equal pay for equal work in the collegiate teaching sphere is a subject that deserves a great deal of attention.

I’ll start with a few basics.

For those of you who are not aware of this—and I am willing to bet most people are not aware of this—by virtue of my being an adjunct faculty member (as opposed to a full-time faculty member), I make about 50% less per hour than an equally trained and equally experienced full-timer makes.

I say me, but you can take my case as representing the average part-timer at any college.

If I were to be hired as a full-timer today, when I walked into my classroom tomorrow, I would have the same duties to my students, the same obligations to my course, and I would spend the same amount of time teaching as I did Monday; however, when I walked into class on tomorrow, I’d earn 50% more money simply by virtue of a change in my employment status.

I know, some of you are thinking that’s the way of the working world, and to a certain extent, you are correct.

But you know how important careful analysis is to me, so let’s pull this apart a bit more.

Let’s consider a single class and how it works.

A class is opened for enrollment, and students sign up for it. When they sign up, they agree to pay a fee for the course. That fee covers a variety of things, but in essence, it offsets the cost of running the class. In return for that fee, students are given the opportunity to learn the presented course content and received credit for it if they pass.

Whether it is me or a full-timer who is assigned to teach a class, the content, the requirements, and the delivery methods are the same. The fee the students pay is the same, and the credit the students earn is the same.

It costs the school less money for me to teach the class, but the product and what they charge for it is no different.

Most students are completely unaware of whether the instructor for whom they have signed up is full-time or part-time, and while they might not care, it seems like someone who is only worth half of the pay as is someone else might be less able to perform the job task. It would seem that this difference would be a thing a school would be required to disclose to its students; after all, the students are paying for a service.

This is the it-takes-place-right-here-in-America equivalent of outsourcing and/or sweatshop labor.

Keep in mind that as an adjunct faculty member, I am required to have the same education and the same skills as is required of my full-time counterparts.

I am not supervised while I teach.

I do not have to run my ideas by a superior.

I am not on any kind of probation.

This is not at all like most of the working world.

In most of the working world, education, job experience, and overall performance make up the bulk of the determining factors in one’s pay rate. In almost any skilled profession, one’s status as a part-time employee prohibits one from performing certain tasks; however, I am doing exactly what a full-timer does in every respect when I teach.

It is what is required of me—I don’t just do more than the average part-timer because I am better at my job or because I care more about it.

I am not an intern.

I am not an understudy.

I am not a trainee.

I have my BA and my MA and 8 years of teaching experience under my belt; however, the newest full-timer in my department (BA and MA in hand) has only an internship behind him, and when he steps to the front of the room to teach, by virtue of his employment status, he makes 40% more than I do. (He’ll get that extra 10% after he teaches a bit longer.)

Now, I am not saying he isn’t as qualified as me, but I am certainly saying I deserve to earn more than 60% of his wage: I deserve to be paid the same rate as he is paid for doing the same work as he does.

If I am not worth the same amount of money as an instructor, then certainly, students should receive a discount for attending one of my classes.

I may have figured out what I am doing wrong in teacher-land: I try to act like an adult, and I presume the people with whom I am interacting are adults.

stupid-stupid-stupid

Last night, after dismissing my final class, I experienced one of those moments when professionalism and simply being human clashed.

One of my students returned to the room (prior to my managing to escape) and said,

Define late.

This was not an attempt to learn something new, nor was it an honest plea for clarification: it was defiant.

Ironically, as clear as the term late is, I have defined it in my course syllabus because I have had prior experience with students acting in this asinine manner. Here is a portion of what my students are told:

LATE WORK:

Due dates of all essays and reading analyses, as well as dates of your midterms and final are listed on this syllabus. In addition, they are listed on the course Web site on the Major Due Dates page. PLAN YOUR SEMESTER NOW! Unless you have made prior arrangements with me, late work will be penalized. (See note regarding make-up work, below.)

1. LATE as defined by Shawn: after I begin class or take role on the due date.
2. PRIOR CONSENT as defined by Shawn: you have talked to me personally, before the due date, and we have made other arrangements. (Leaving me a note or sending an e-mail is not sufficient!)

Here’s what I replied to my student:

So, the term late confuses you. Wow—I suggest you open the dictionary that is required for this class and take a look at the definition. Then, for even more clarification, you can refer to the course syllabus, where I define the term.

I got the very adult response, “whatever” before the student left the room.

Not a minute later, back in the student walks.

“I want you to know, I think you’re mean.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

“None of my other teachers gave out homework over the break.”

“Okay—let me make sure I understand you: the assignment I gave you three weeks ago—the one I collected today—you put it off until the break, and that makes me mean, right?”

“What—ever.”

Apparently, I am mean.

Fine.

But that student is a bugger-snot.

Spring Break officially begins today; however, as a Monday/Wednesday instructor, mine began a few days ago. I still have an armload of papers to grade, but I’m taking a few days off to recover from my last grading marathon.

The sun was shining on my world until I sat down to my e-mail this morning. On the heels of a recent assignment and the student messages from yesterday, it’s now tornado weather in my mind.

Just before the break, we had midterms and conferences. My students got what I think was a pretty sweet deal: over the course of the three class meetings leading up to break, I held conferences, and all each student had to do was show up for his or her 30-minute meeting, and in exchange, the student was done with my class until after the break.

There were two caveats to this: the assignments that were due needed to be dropped off by their due dates (one was due one week ago Wednesday, and the other was due this past Wednesday).

I am one of those instructors who is a poor planner: I pass out a syllabus on the first day of class that contains all of the major due dates for the course. That’s right folks, I’m so lazy, and I care so little about my students’ success, I let them know on the first day of class when things will be due.

Additionally, I wait until 2 to 4 weeks before a major writing assignment is due to pass out the specific guidelines. My students are given a mere 4 weeks to write a 4-page essay. Goodness, what am I thinking?

There was a real problem with the first essay: over 80% of my students had severe difficulty counting to four when preparing their papers, and of the remaining 20%, half of them couldn’t remember what I’d said about essay structure, so they gave me papers that contained neither thesis sentences nor connected analysis. (Of course, I don’t teach those things any more than I actually reveal due dates.)

Against my better judgment, I allowed those who were counting challenged and/or structure challenged to complete an alternate assignment to earn credit up to the minimum passing grade on that first essay.

Let me be clear: the extra assignment meant more work for me, but hey, it was my fault my students didn’t follow directions, right?

The due date for Essay #2 has come and gone, and I have been spammed by e-excuses regarding the variety of reasons another 4-page paper was impossible to manage in just under 4-weeks’ time.

The two that sent me into a mental frenzy are as follows:

1. One student claimed to have forgotten the due date of the essay. When on Friday, she realized she should have turned her work in on Wednesday, she put a copy of it in my box and e-mailed me a version—for my convenience. The student assured me the work was completed on time.

Liar-liar-pants-on-fire!

Let’s think about this, shall we? A student works diligently on a paper, gets it done, but forgets when it’s supposed to be turned in? In fact, she’s so forgetful that the Wednesday prior to our break comes and goes, and it doesn’t strike her that since we only meet on Monday and Wednesday the paper might need to be turned in? In her confusion (or joy over the paper’s being done early) she forgets my e-mail address so she can’t ask me the due date, and she forgets the course Web site address where she could check the due date, and she forgets to look on the assignment sheet that lists the due date, and she forgets to look at the essay prompt which also has the due date.

Wow—is there a doctor in the house? This student has a brain disease.

2. Add to this the student who finally finished his paper and dashed to campus last night at 8:00 pm on the Friday before Spring Break begins, and was shocked to find the campus locked up tighter than a drum. This student then badgered one of the janitors until he agreed to unlock the door, take the student’s paper, and put it in my box. Unfortunately, this horrible janitor man wouldn’t put his initials on the paper, nor would he verify the date and time for this ever-so-responsible-and-persistent student, so now said student is mad his paper might lose more credit than it should.

Now, I wasn’t a perfect student, nor am I a perfect teacher, nor am I a perfect person, but I like to think I operate with a certain degree of personal accountability.

I simply cannot comprehend the mindset of any student who feels his or her inability to be responsible is my concern or the concern of a janitor who could probably lose his job for unlocking a door after hours.

One of the major breakthroughs I experienced as a student was a direct result of Henry James.

During my time as a graduate student, I signed up for a Henry James literature course because I thought highly of the professor who was teaching it. I don’t think I’d really read much Henry James—“Daisy Miller” perhaps or “The Beast in the Jungle”: both are staples of undergraduate, survey literature courses, and neither is really indicative of what I believe makes James great—but I digress.

One of the first reading assignments we were given was The Portrait of a Lady—in chunks of 10-15 chapters per week.

I was anxious to get into the text, and I remember with absolute clarity sitting down to begin this novel. After an hour, I had finally untangled the meaning in the first paragraph of the text.

Here’s that first paragraph:

Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea. There are circumstances in which, whether you partake of the tea or not–some people of course never do–the situation is in itself delightful. Those that I have in mind in beginning to unfold this simple history offered an admirable setting to an innocent pastime. The implements of the little feast had been disposed upon the lawn of an old English country-house, in what I should call the perfect middle of a splendid summer afternoon. Part of the afternoon had waned, but much of it was left, and what was left was of the finest and rarest quality. Real dusk would not arrive for many hours; but the flood of summer light had begun to ebb, the air had grown mellow, the shadows were long upon the smooth, dense turf. They lengthened slowly, however, and the scene expressed that sense of leisure still to come which is perhaps the chief source of one’s enjoyment of such a scene at such an hour. From five o’clock to eight is on certain occasions a little eternity; but on such an occasion as this the interval could be only an eternity of pleasure. The persons concerned in it were taking their pleasure quietly, and they were not of the sex which is supposed to furnish the regular votaries of the ceremony I have mentioned. The shadows on the perfect lawn were straight and angular; they were the shadows of an old man sitting in a deep wicker-chair near the low table on which the tea had been served, and of two younger men strolling to and fro, in desultory talk, in front of him. The old man had his cup in his hand; it was an unusually large cup, of a different pattern from the rest of the set and painted in brilliant colors. He disposed of its contents with much circumspection, holding it for a long time close to his chin, with his face turned to the house. His companions had either finished their tea or were indifferent to their privilege; they smoked cigarettes as they continued to stroll. One of them, from time to time, as he passed, looked with a certain attention at the elder man, who, unconscious of observation, rested his eyes upon the rich red front of his dwelling. The house that rose beyond the lawn was a structure to repay such consideration and was the most characteristic object in the peculiarly English picture I have attempted to sketch.

With the same clarity with which I recall paining myself over this paragraph, I recall the outrage I felt when I finally grasped what I had battled over for so long:

Men—men are having tea. Men are sitting on a porch in the approaching sunset enjoying tea—a scene generally populated by women.

What kind of a jackass takes almost 500 convoluted words to tell his readers men are at tea?

(Remember, I’d spent an hour getting through what amounted to 3/4 of one page, and to keep on a reading schedule, I’d need to get through another 50 pages before putting the book down.)

Had I not been assigned the text, I’d have tossed the novel aside and never thought of it again—ever. But I had to get through it: it was an assignment, so I went on.

By the time I’d plowed my way through another ten pages, I was exhausted, and I gave up. I had begun to feel as if the class was going to be beyond my reach, and I was pretty depressed.

When next I took up the book—about 48 hours had passed—I held it in my hands feeling as if it was the thing that had finally beaten me—I’d met a book I couldn’t handle, and as a graduate student in English, it felt like the greatest form of failure.

For reasons I may never understand, I went back to that first paragraph and began reading it to reaffirm how pointless it had been.

That’s when it happened: suddenly, the words that had been so meaningless to me—the words that felt like such a waste—seemed to paint a picture so strikingly vivid that I felt the setting sun beginning to blind me; I heard the clinking of cups on saucers; I smelled the acid aroma of the tea.

I was there. Oh, I was there.

I wondered to myself how a person could manage to describe three men having tea with such clarity and detail in only 500 words, and I wondered further what drove a writer to paint the picture when it was simply an introductory image: it serves no great point in the storyline but to vaguely introduce some of the characters.

The feeling of really having connected with the text after having struggled with it was unlike anything I had ever experienced, and that high is what I seek when I read and when I teach.

It’s the reason I chose to teach Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw in my upcoming literature course: it is written in the same rolling, verbose, image-filled manner that makes Henry James the master he is. It is also one of the greatest ghost stories I’ve ever read.

I have no idea if I can convince a room of summer-session students to take a solid bite out of James’ words, to chew his text vigorously, and to keep masticating until they can taste every juicy bite he has to offer, but I am sure going to try.

It was well after dark when I got home this evening, but through the small gaps in the pines trees that surround my home, I was able to catch a glimpse of my front porch. I saw the small package on the doorstep: it had arrived early.

With the giddy excitement of a child on Christmas morning, I hurried to the box, grabbed it, headed inside, and tore it open. Inside were three items: The Turn of the Screw (a novella by Henry James); A Modern Treasury of Great Detective and Murder Mysteries (an anthology of contemporary mystery and suspense fiction); and A Treasury of Victorian Murder (a graphic novel that recounts several of the famous, unsolved crimes of the Victorian Age).

These are the books I’m using for the literature course I am teaching over the summer: the theme is murder, and I cannot wait to get my hands dirty.

[Extended evil laugh here.]

I spoke about the need to revamp the college system a few posts ago, and part of what I proposed has been undertaken in the United Kingdom: recognizing meaningful educational needs and their equal importance.

The Government has today set out detailed proposals so that from 2015 all young people will remain in some form of education or training until their 18th birthday.

If this were only about age, I wouldn’t care too much one-way-or-the-other about it; however, there is more, and the more is what I think is important:

To make sure the right provision is in place the new requirement would not be implemented until 2013 by which time the new Diplomas will be a National Entitlement. This will give young people a choice of A levels, GCSEs, the International Baccalaureate, the new Diplomas, Apprenticeships, and accredited in-work training.

The article makes clear that the educators, business people, and citizens in the UK recognize the importance of a varied workforce that has been educated in diverse areas. They’re even planning to confer degrees to acknowledge this rational, necessary, and productive approach.

While I realize we (pretend to) have a similar system in place, we really don’t. In America, individuals who pursue non-academic education are marginalized and treated as sub-standard. We simply do not acknowledge the importance of education as a means to learn a trade or secure a labor-based career; we pretend general education courses and declared majors are the only path worthy of study and the hallowed halls of academia.

It seems the great minds and leaders in the UK get it. Wouldn’t it be nice of our leaders spent some time getting it too?

Students hate writing in-class.

Many teachers hate assigning in-class writing.

The advent of computers has led to an inability on the part of many students to write legibly, and the degree to which students rely on their word processors to check their spelling and grammar and punctuation is frightening.

Each of these issues comes to light during an in-class exam, and each presents its own problem(s) in terms of reading, marking, and grading papers; however, the in-class essay is an absolute necessity in any writing course.

Computers and the internet allow far too many students to “improve” their writing falsely.

Computers generally catch and correct basic sentence-level errors like subject-verb agreement and pronoun-antecedent agreement. This is a real problem when students who have no control over these very basic skills are not being forced to learn them because a machine is doing the work for them.

Additionally, computers can solve basic spelling, punctuation, and grammar problems, and this is also a significant problem in terms of learning and education. (At least in this area, the user’s level of knowledge often forestalls the computer’s accuracy.)

Many students are making their way through their college courses by purchasing ready-made and/or custom papers via one of the hundreds of online sites designed to facilitate this.

The only accurate gauge a writing instructor has of a student’s real writing skill is though the use of one or more in-class writings. So, while papers written in-class suffer from more than just content-based analytical problems, the exercise is well worth the associated problems.

After an in-class writing, I know immediately which of my students is relying on outside sources and/or a computer to write her papers. Sometimes this is an innocent situation, but usually, it is a revealed attempt on the part of the student to cheat her way through a course.

I implement a number of in-class writings into my semester plans, so I am clear early on regarding who is writing for himself and who is not.

Too many teachers refuse to include in-class writings into their course plans, and many who do include in-class work place too little emphasis on the percentage of a student’s grade for which an in-class writing counts.

Educators can’t pretend to care whether or not students can write in general (and on their own, specifically) if we don’t create an environment in which that skill set is required and challenged.

It might be reasonable to assume my problem is not the educational system or the students and teachers involved therein, but my not really liking what I do. There is some truth to this; however, I don’t know a single person who doesn’t dislike his or her job at times and elements of his or her job at all times.

Here are the things that would make my job perfect:

Classes filled with students who were as interested in learning about English as they are about learning the secret codes of text-messaging;

Having my own office in which to work and conference;

Getting paid for the hours I have to work outside of the classroom to do the job expected of me inside the classroom—I’d even take an hourly wage cut of up to 50% to get this because I’d still make 3-5 times what I currently make.

If I could have the above three things, I would rarely be pissed off.

So, why do I stay? Primarily, because I can’t help myself. I’ve tried not teaching, and it doesn’t work well for me. The interaction with the few students who do make the job special coupled with the fact that I love learning make teaching a relatively good fit. I also know in my heart that too many teachers like me are quitting, and too many teachers not like me are sticking around: eventually, this will kill education all together.

Yesterday’s class discussion was one of those teaching moments that are really rewarding. Sometimes they happen unexpectedly, and other times, we teachers build to them and hope for results. Occasionally, those anticipated results are met, and the world is a beautiful place with endless possibilities.

My students had just completed a reading cycle that included The Declaration of Independence, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” (by Frederick Douglass), and “Ain’t I a Woman?” by Sojourner Truth. I begin many semester’s with a similar reading cycle to engage students in critical thinking and to (try) to inspire them.

We discuss the famous lines from The Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

We focus on the terms “self-evident,” “men,” “equal,” “unalienable Rights,” and then, once the class is clear on each of these terms, we move on to the date on which The Declaration was signed.

It is an amazing thing to watch students begin to connect the date of the signing of our Declaration and realize that over 20 years later, Sojourner Truth was born into slavery, and over 20 years after that, so was Frederick Douglass.

The reason I stay is because details like these are important.

The reason I stay is because listening to students get angry when they get the contradiction is what teaching is all about.

The reason I stay is because the deeper understanding that begins with those readings and the accompanying discussions sticks with a few of the students just long enough for them to become more aware.

It’s the magic that for a short time makes the horrid conditions, and the unconscionable pay irrelevant.

Several weeks ago, I began to wonder where my W2 was: it had not arrived, and I was beginning to get worried.

If you do a bit of simple math, you’ll realize “several weeks ago” would be sometime in early February. You might also wonder why it took me until early February to miss a document that was supposed to show up in January.

I could blame this on being an English teacher: late things are so common they are, well, common.

Instead, I’ll place the blame where it belongs: The Los Rios Community College District.

Last year, a wonderful glitch in the PeopleSoft software the district uses caused all of Sacramento City College’s W2s to print with faulty figures. The bad W2s were distributed, and shortly thereafter, letters were mailed explaining the problem and notifying us that new W2s would arrive shortly. A few weeks later (in early February), I received my correct W2.

My mental where’s-my-W2? clock now operates on LRCC Distribution Time, so I didn’t begin to wonder about this year’s W2 until early February.

I placed a call to Human Resources and was told that a glitch in the PeopleSoft software had sent “a number” of W2s to old addresses. Now, my NEW address is going to be three this summer. This means it is completely independent of my old address. It gets nothing from it. Not a card on its birthday. Not a present at Christmas. In other words, NO FORWARDED MAIL.

Some stranger now has a copy of my W2. As special as I am, my W2 is much like yours: it has my full name, my social security number, my salary, details regarding my place of employment—you know, the very information identity thieves need to victimize people.

No one has apologized to me about this, and to the best of my knowledge, a general notification about this year’s “glitch” hasn’t been distributed. It is like a dirty little secret that the Los Rios Community College District has swept under the carpet.

And to think, I can’t be trusted with a library book.

When I was a student, I always viewed the days just before a new semester as exciting. New books, new binders, new opportunities. . .

As an instructor, I feel that same giddiness as the beginning of a new semester approaches. The newness surrounding books and binders and opportunities are not that different for a teacher.

The course I teach most often is English Writing 300—most of you remember it as English 1A—some of you remember it as Freshman Composition. Regardless of the title, it is the first level of composition that counts towards an AA or a BA/BA it is often the first (and sometimes the only) level of composition that is required to earn an AA or a BA/BS.

The longer I teach the class, the better I get at it, primarily because I make it a point to tweak the course content each semester. This keeps me on my toes, and keeps me engaged. It also means I spend even more time working for free, but that part I am willing to do out of my love for teaching.

This semester, I faced one of the greatest and most common of teaching challenges: the release of a new edition of the primary textbook I use for my course. When textbooks are revised, and a new edition emerges, there are a variety of issues that rear their ugly heads.

First,one must check to see that the core materials one uses are still included in the text.

One must review every handout that corresponds to the text and re-paginate references accordingly.

One must get her hands on several copies before the semester begins:

One for personal use;

One to keep handy and unmarked for various tasks of copying and borrowing;

One to place on reserve in the library for students who won’t get a textbook for reasons good and bad.

One must do this in spite of the fact that book reps take vacations just when instructors need these copies.

One must face the daunting task of transferring every annotation and every bookmark from the old text to the new. (This is a 20+ hour process for me, and working between textbooks is far too clumsy to be an effective classroom alternative.)

During the first two weeks of class, one must ask force each of her students who bought the still-available-as-used-in-the-bookstore-for-less to return said text and buy the correct edition.

Counting the latest edition, the textbook I use has gone through six (6) edition updates in the last eight (8) years. This is as shocking as it is typical. (Note to self: write and publish your own textbook, and wait for the royalties to flood in.)

The looming new textbook addition and my deep need to really try to shake the frustration monkey off of my back led me to make use of a really cool service offered by some of the textbook publishers: choosing personalized course content in a print-on-demand style textbook.

Instead of spending the time getting the new version of my old textbook ready to go, I got down and dirty and created a textbook tailored for my class and the way I teach it. I chose the readings, the rhetoric, the order of content, and best of all, I kept the price under $20.00.

I am thrilled with the results, and I can’t wait to dig into the semester!

[END NOTE: Creating the new book took me just under sixty (60) hours, and the bookstore marked up the price to $25.00.]