tagged w/ instructor
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One of the best teachers I've ever worked alongside tells me that, after we received tenure last spring, he "splurged" to actually buy furniture for his rental house. For the last three years, he and I and several other probationary instructors have been reluctant to put down any roots in this town, because we are subject to being fired at any time, depending upon the whims of the administrators who watch over us. In late summer, we were given contracts to sign that would ensure we could work for another year, so my friend took the big plunge and bought real furniture. Near age 60, after a lifetime of toil in the classroom, he allowed himself the luxury of having a comfortable place to sit down in the evening.
I haven't taken that plunge yet, and I'm now glad, because we got our layoff notices in November, just after the term had started. The newest college president has decided to play with our lives ( and the lives of our students) the way a six-year-old plays with Fischer Price's plastic people. The president makes three times what I do, and rather than take a pay cut, himself, he axed six of us (out of a total faculty of 39). Nine other instructors have been "reduced" or forced into retirement because the geniuses who are being paid over $100k each have mismanaged the school's finances so that ten percent of the total budget has vanished.
The president has repeatedly warned all instructors not to put a bad face on this fiasco, because it may drive away students, and if that happens, he may lose his job, too. We instructors have been cheery little soldiers as we've conducted our classes as best we could, sat in meetings to prepare us to file for unemployment in March, and searched for job openings.
The same situations exist all over the United States as community colleges are being internally destroyed in favor of the creation of corporate job training centers that are "more responsive to local business needs." Now, you won't hear me argue against the need for schools to teach marketable job skills; people must learn useful and substantive information and skills to be valuable to potential employers. However, college administrators are acting as hired guns for political and economic masters who wish to create a class of working clones who cannot and will not question their motivations, decisions, or actions. Administrators target instructors who have not toed the line when it comes to blindly agreeing with administrative decisions, surrendering academic freedom, and abandoning unions. Instructors who persist in standing up for what they know is right are being axed faster than tax revenues are drying up, and administrators are positioning themselves to retain positions which already pay way more than they're worth.
I ask myself why there would be a need for even a single college administrator if there were no instructors. What is a college without a large variety of educated, opinionated, dedicated instructors who model the diversity and vibrancy of the larger society? A college without open-minded and academically free instructors is a warehouse where students shuffle through, accepting piecemeal information fed to them as if they were chickens in a poultry farm. Despite that, the new trend is to push our learning institutions into just that mode, offering a McDonald's menu-style "education" where the consuming world awaits just outside the graduation auditorium to digest the "product." How much should an administrator of such a place be paid? Wouldn't such an individual be better suited to work in a slaughterhouse, where it is much easier to track success by weighing the resulting meat?
So my friend and colleague "splurged," and now he doesn't know if he'll have a place in which to store his furniture. While he and I and thousands of excellent instructors across the nation face the open hostility of administrators who would have no jobs were it not for us, newspapers, radio, and online sources rail about how "selfish" we are and how terrible our schools have become. We are scapegoats being used to deflect the attention of the public away from the crooks and liars who have stolen our pensions, our jobs, and our futures.
As a teacher for many years, I have found that faculty rooms are chock full of gentle, unassertive souls who teach because they like people. Teachers are suckers when it comes to buying used cars, subscribing to magazines sold by kids who come to their doors, and working at bake sales for people who are sick, broke, or who just need a helping hand. The teachers I've worked with are naive when it comes to ramming through a business deal, finding income tax loopholes, and gaming the system. They look up to and trust administrators when it comes to protecting their workplace, supporting them in their right to teach and grade students, and help them continue when their wages are relatively low, given their training and expertise. The new class of school administrators, however, are like foxes in henhouses. They draw relatively enormous salaries and treat the instructors as if they are trash. The arrogance and lack of compassion in many college administrators is matched only by their selective ethical behavior that allows them to thrive while the true college, the students and teachers, slowly dissolves in a sea of red ink and political bile.
My friend and colleague, having been bullied by the college president, will have to be bullied into protecting his own rights, because he is a gentle and sincere man who cares about learning. He hates getting attention, and he is terrified that if he resists being laid off, he will be blacklisted online and never be able to get a teaching job again. He and thousands just like him are a permanent underclass of educated people who have been singled out for elimination by corporate liars who, having stolen the country's wealth, now wish to steal its future. It is a criminally absurd situation that makes one want to scream. But that would be unseemly behavior for a teacher.One of the best teachers I've ever worked alongside tells me that, after we... more
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Background: College nationwide are replacing full-time instructors with part-time, adjunct instructors who receive no benefits, must travel to several schools to teach and make a living, and who cannot be on campus when students need them. This trend is destructive in that it makes education a cheap commodity rather than something to be valued and enjoyed, destroys relationships, breaks apart communities, and creates a generation of worker bees who belong only to the corporations.Background: College nationwide are replacing full-time instructors with part-time,... more
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US News and World Report ranked the top 100 high schools in the United States.
The highest rated school in the nation, was Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia. The school offers courses in DNA science, neurology, and quantum physics.
That's pretty impressive. I'm sure all of these students will attend incredible universities. And for this, I feel so sorry for all of the graduate student instructors, who will teach their freshman sections.
Students who come from great high schools, end up being the cockiest. I know from personal experience. I went to an excellent humanities magnet school (though not good enough for this list.) We studied and embraced socialism, postmodernity, and the philosophy of aesthetics. We were thus, very well prepared to bullshit the hell out of first-year TAs.
I 'd throw around words like hegemony and poststucturalism, even though I didn't actually understand them. I'd talk about Foucault and Sartre, despite only reading several paragraphs of their writing. I was very good at convincing these instructors that I understood what I was talking about.
Since TAs don't expect much from freshmen, they reward them heavily for throwing around buzzwords.
As I learned more my head grew. I became overly confident with my intellect. I attribute my high school experience to my current levels of pretension, elitism, and narcissism.
So before you consider sending your kids to an excellent school like the International Academy of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan or KIPP Houston High School, think the about the effects this might have on your kids later in life.
Because as the bard once wrote:
"Nobody likes it when homeboys be gloating 'bout their high schools."US News and World Report ranked the top 100 high schools in the United States.
The... more
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These days, students who miss an important point the first time have a second chance. After class, they can pipe the lecture to their laptops or MP3 players and hear it again while looking at the slides that illustrate the talk.These days, students who miss an important point the first time have a second chance.... more
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A scout leader who once sued the City of Berkeley for challenging a national Boy Scout ban on members who are gay or atheist has been arrested on felony charges that for at least five years he sexually abused young males in the troops he led.A scout leader who once sued the City of Berkeley for challenging a national Boy Scout... more
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Thomas G. Waites, Broadway veteran of the stage famous for his role in the cult classic, "The Warriors," imparts his wisdom on the young and restless of today's Hollywood.Thomas G. Waites, Broadway veteran of the stage famous for his role in the cult... more
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