I’ve Come Back to Life Again
I don’t know why I feel the need, after 17 years of writing on this blog, to explain why I write like a maniac and then stop for months at a time. I will never be consistent. It is the disease of the artist. Inspiration is very tricky; the muse is elusive and mysterious. She’s kind of a bitch.
I’ve heard rumors of writers who write every single day of their lives, sometimes at the same time every day. That amazes me, and it’s hard to believe for someone like me who has a love-hate relationship with discipline.
Anyways, enough about that. Moving on…
I have made an executive decision to start teaching again. I say executive because I’m the executive of my life. You know how they talk about executive dysfunction; I suffer from that when I get depressed. I did get depressed for a couple of months after my father’s death anniversary. Then I popped into an almost hypomanic episode, as one does as a bipolar person. Now I’ve settled down, and I feel balanced. Peaceful even. And inspired.
I will be teaching anywhere but at the secondary level simply because when I taught high school I considered it a form of slavery. I mean, I woke up at 5 a.m. and was grading until 6 p.m. And one can barely make ends meet on a teacher’s salary.
It is wrong. Possibly one of the worst things this country has done to itself.
Teachers are the ones molding people’s minds. Teachers literally create leaders and presidents and CEOs. And regular people—let’s not forget the average person. EVERYONE is affected by teachers. Everyone has a teacher that touched them.
Anyways, I will be teaching at the college level because it’s a cushy job compared to secondary education, and I can make a decent salary. I was an adjunct professor, and they do take advantage of adjuncts and don’t give them benefits and such, but I’m looking to possibly teach at a university level in a tenure-track position. There are many reputable universities that have online programs, even Ivy League schools. I would prefer to teach in person, but I refuse to leave the great state of Michigan. Only because I’m 50 and I’m not starting my life over.
I have a very full life, a community, and a family.
Having said that, I will take ANY college job for January, community college or university.
Required Reading
Many of the community college kids don’t do the reading. But when I taught at the University of Detroit, most did all the reading.
Look, who am I to judge? I was probably supposed to read Jane Eyre at some point. When I told my professor in grad school that I had never read it, she told me I would never be able to write unless I studied the classics. I tried to read Jane Eyre, but I couldn’t get into it. Do I really need to read it? I am the mad woman in the attic.
But in all seriousness, many university kids are more intellectual. Not more intelligent, but more intellectual than the community college kids. But the community college kids can be more fun. I used to do a segment on visual arguments and showed them music videos like “Man in the Mirror.”
In community college, they generally got into the music videos, although one student said that John Lennon was a rapist. That is not a fact or even a factoid.
At the university level, the kids did their homework, but they weren’t always as amused by my dog-and-pony show. I try to make learning interesting, so I have to put on a show. I mean, let’s face the reality that I’m dramatic enough to be in a telenovela and missed my calling as a Bollywood actress.
But I digress, or maybe that’s the point.
That’s why I love teaching; I like using creative methods to get through to these screen-obsessed, technologically addicted kids.
I have to be more interesting than that machine in their pocket. Sometimes I will throw in something I have written for them to read. I don’t tell them I wrote it and listen to their critiques. It’s fascinating to hear what these 20-year-olds think of this 50-year-old’s writing. Some students love it, some hate it, and others are indifferent.
I try not to take it personally.
Honestly, though, who authorized me, this imposter, to mold young minds? No one teaches you how to teach at the college level. They just leave you in the arena with the bulls, and you pray you won’t die.
It is difficult to teach these self-righteous, entitled kids. But oh, is it so worth it when you get through to them.
In my argumentative writing classes, I always made them do debates. My boss told me students resent talking about politics. My argument to her was that this is an academic setting; this is where they can learn how to make arguments in real time about political issues. It’s better than the Thanksgiving table.
Once a student reported me because we were debating abortion, and a student had said that people who get abortions are equivalent to satanic baby killers or something. I do not tolerate disrespect in my classroom; this comment slipped under the radar. I hadn’t caught it in the moment, but I made it clear to the administrator that allowing students to debate controversial issues is not the same as allowing them to disrespect others.
Jesus. Teaching is hard.
I haven’t even gotten to the part where I grade their papers. Again, in community college we had a lot of basic writing issues. At the university level, the issues with the arguments were more sophisticated.
But generally speaking, twenty-year-olds are brilliant. It’s a new age; they think for themselves sometimes more than my generation.
They make me feel young and alive.
I have been resurrected and have come back from the dead, only to report that it’s not as bad out here as we think it is.
nina
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