The last day of July. Sometimes
when August happens, I panic. But I think I have already been panicking.
Lately. Maybe all summer. Let me be clear: I have no reason to panic, about
anything. I work. I have money. I pay my bills. I have some cash in the savings
and occasionally put some into retirement accounts that I have set up myself. I
own a house. I have a loving if high-maintenance dog. I have an excellent and
supportive domestic partner. Although I have spent a lot lot of time working
this summer (on writing and professional development, mostly unpaid, and some
union work), for the most part my schedule is my own and it is flexible.
I am or will panic because I am
not ready to go back to teaching full time in the fall semester. I say full time,
but really I will be working more than a full time teaching load at three
campuses. I will have five classes as it now seems, though the final details
are still working out. Some people freak out about doing four classes at one
time, at one place. Last year in the fall semester, I had seven. I am feeling
especially grateful that I don’t have to do that again. I’m not even sure I
could. I already feel exhausted just thinking about it. I was trying to
consider teaching only four at two campuses this fall. It would be financially
possible. But the numbers on paper are not the same as when they come in the check,
after taxes. The bills that I have to pay don’t give discounts because I lost
30% of my check to taxes. When I say I am making 35k or 40k per year, I really
mean it’s only about 20k or 25k or whatever is about a third less. And now,
electricity costs more, groceries cost more, and my partner and I are trying to
buy a different house and also put money into retirement. But I am made to feel
like I should be grateful to earn 30k. That money in a retirement account is a privilege
and a luxury. I have to get special permission to teach an extra class even
though the full time load for part-time instructors doesn’t actually pay a professional
full-time salary. I am supposed to dedicate my full time working hours but the
institution won’t actually pay me a proper full time salary. I would like to
quit the third job, but the two campuses of the same school won’t allow me to
work enough to make enough money.
So many people have it so
much worse. A lot of people would be ecstatic to make 30 or 35k. I shouldn’t
complain. But in fact, these are related issues. The service industry is
fighting for $15 because the current min. wage is not a living wage. More
people with families and mortgages and bills are working min. wage jobs. The
educational system is being decimated for so many, a majority, who don’t have
access to private schools or who don’t live in the few wealthy neighborhoods
with superior public schools. The reduced value on and quality of education has
put more people into the service industry instead of into professions. And
people in professions like nursing and teaching have been turned into contract
employees with lower pay and less job security and benefits. The service-industry world serves the profits
of a few but not of the many.
And so my point is, I did not
expect to still be here come this fall. In many ways, I did not expect
otherwise, but a part of me had hope. And I worked that hope into action: I
have been trying to write and publish and do as much professional development
as I can fit into my schedule. I published a teaching essay. I have failed at
publishing other academic essays. I am failing at getting much at all of my
creative writing published. At so at this point I am focusing my energy on teaching and academic/prof. development
within the teaching context. I wouldn’t say I have given up on my own creative
writing, but out of necessity I’ve had to push it to the edges of my time and
effort to make space for kinds of writing that will help me to get a full time
job. That means thinking and writing about teaching/pedagogy in general, and
toward a full time job teaching composition in particular. My degrees are in literature,
cultural studies, and creative writing. The composition world is friendlier
toward cultural studies and creative writing, but I have a ways to go to “prove”
myself as having converted to the field. A prejudice against literary people
lingers in the air. And I just don’t have enough energy to keep trying to do
all of it. Although to me these things all go together, and all go into my
teaching and my dedication to that, teaching experience alone is not enough and
apparently one needs to be able to market oneself. I don’t really know what
that means. I’m just trying to refocus myself and my disparate experiences into
a version of me that will make sense to hiring committees. I’m not faking it,
or changing myself; I’m just re-packaging or something.
I have had two interviews for
full time jobs at community colleges, which I have been rejected for. I am a
weird fit for a community college even though I have taught at a number of them
and am totally dedicated to teaching, and have many years of experience to show
that. The last interview felt totally rushed and the questions were all
questions that were a bit off in some way from the questions I expected, like
it was a specialty test of some kind. I must have sounded like a rambling idiot
trying to come up with answers I hadn’t expected to think about. I had another
interview for a full time, though one year temporary position. The interview I
thought was really great, and I would have loved working in that department. But
as with most of these things, many people more qualified than me applied, and I
didn’t get it. I also later discovered that I had a missed fixing an error on
my cover letter. Could this have been the determining factor? I think not, but
maybe. Maybe I am not a careful enough person to have a full time job.
So I feel like I am giving myself
one more year to keep doing this. But I feel like I keep saying that. This
summer, I didn’t want to give up my summer and so didn’t apply for other,
non-teaching jobs that would start before Sept. And now I have a full teaching schedule
for Sept. so the need for a different kind of job seems lessened. But how will
I feel in Dec.? And I have spent the summer basically working on developing
myself further as a teacher and academic/writer, so every time I think about
doing something else, I think about how much I have invested in doing this over
the past 15 years. And I keep seeing other people land jobs that they love or
have been waiting for, some in teaching and others in other fields. Other
people apply for jobs and get them. I am trying to be hopeful and work toward
some kind of professional success but it is draining, disheartening, like
trudging through mud sometimes. It is hard to continue to be motivated when the
potential results are so ambiguous, and when faced with so many rejections all
of the time. Even though I now feel like I do have some stability in terms of
work and making not-entirely-terrible pay, I still feel relegated to the kiddie
table. This is not a world in which teachers are given any professional
respect. And for part time teachers, the ambivalence is even more apparent.
In the meantime, I have now over committed
myself to writing papers to present at a number of conferences this fall, one
or two papers to submit as possible book chapters, and since I’ve now been
working on pedagogy and teaching through some amazing workshops and online
classes/discussions, I now have to spend some time carefully revising some of
my syllabi. I am excited for some new approaches to teaching. And I am daunted
by the time and energy I’m going to need to get any of it done before the
semester actually starts…
To find out more about this mini-essay project see the Introduction:The (Contingent)(Academic)(Teacher) in 2015
