And just when you thought it was over…

I finally finished grading the essays written by the classes who took their tests last week.

*sighs*

I have a few more additions to the “Herstory Hates How They Write” list.  Ready?  Here ya go…

1. We had won wars before, but we had never really whoopered upon anyone.
2. Secondly, it was were TR got his start as a kick-ass ruler.
3. When he returned from war, he pulled a John McCain and went into politics.
4. The women saw that their power together was great and men could not stopit.  So, they protest and thus making changes for men so the men can let women vote and women where happy.
5. The indepant wuman shorted her hairs and dress and called herself a Flapper.
6. The males final maded the 19th Amendment and women took a stand against their men.

Ever hear Jerry Dee’s comedy sketch about his experience as a teacher?

  

Ok, the bee-are likeded the hon-eee still cracks me up.  And, it’s no different with what I’m dealing with.  I saw it in the high school when I first started to teach.  I complained that their writing skills were slipping and no one it seems was holding the kids accountable for it.  I was told to be quiet and let it alone.  Nearly 10 years later, I am seeing what I can only deem to be worse.  “Extremely horrific,” is what I said to my department chair at the university, “that SOMEHOW these kids were able to graduate from HIGH SCHOOL and have NOW filtered into colleges without being told or taught to FIX it.”

(Ok, this is where I’m expecting middle- and elementary-level teachers to yell at me.  They ALWAYS do when I start to bitch’n moan.  I am not blaming any ONE level or teacher specifically.  I am blaming our educational system for FAILING to enforce simple rules of writing… such as CAPITALIZING countries, writing OUT people’s names CORRECTLY, simple SENTENCE STRUCTURE that is not comprised of past-present-AND-future tenses wrapped around inappropriately used verbs and prepositions that are entangled around a weak thesis because MOST kids cannot figure out HOW to write a thesis.)

I tried to teach them and “fix” this problem when I taught high school.  I was met with a lot of resistence–from other teachers, administrators, PARENTS, and also the students themselves.  “You make us write TOO much, it’s NOT fair” was the common complaint from my students.  Now they are freshmen in college (the most recent class that I taught).  I actually received an email from a couple of former students who THANKED me for being tougher than nails with them.  “My professor is making me write a half-dozen papers.  I’m going to remember what you told me about writing.  Thank you!”

As a beginner teacher and even as a novice, I was a lone-writing-required-in-my-class-history-teacher swimming against the tide of indifference and frustration.  I WANT our children to be able to communicate PROPERLY and I really WANT them to care.  I was, however, unfortunately detoured by an administrator who wanted writing to be important, but found tuition money to be more important.  I was told to back off.  Reluctantly I did, however, I was seething inside.  Daily.  Seething daily.

So, when I was hired to teach college at both a community college and a state university, I thought, “WOOH BOY! I can FINALLY push my expectations UP a few notches and EXPECT the kids to reach it.”

I was wrong.  Dead wrong.

My department chair, coincidentally, is all for me holding them accountable for their writing skills (or lack thereof).  We have spoken on several occasions about how a writing course needs to be a mandatory requirement by the end of the students’ 2nd year, as a “weeding out” course.  Naturally, we can’t discriminate–therefore, there must be remedial courses included.

Then it HIT me… like a brick wall.

This is COLLEGE, people.  C-O-L-L-E-G-E.  A place where people go to further their studies, to be more educated, etc.  A place where they should WANT to be as opposed to a place where they HAVE to be.

Again, I was wrong.

What I’m learning up here at the college level are that there are a multitude of rules:

1. Even dumb, lazy, and basically apathetic students need a fair education.  One in which the professor must bend to the rules of the kids IF they are deemed “special” and require “special” assistance, a hand to hold, someone to pat them on the back and cheer them on, or a teacher to “bend” the rules if necessary so that THEY TOO can have a true “college experience.”
2. Not every professor follows the 1st rule, unless they are “informed” that by failing kids who do not show up to class, neglect to turn in their work, and fail the tests, they are not making the college appear “user friendly.”  Therefore, teachers even at THIS level are suspectible to apathy.  Beware of apathy–it’s catching!
3. Special needs kids, the low LOW low level kids who need someone to literally HOLD a pencil for them, take their notes FOR them, and take their tests FOR them, are welcomed to attend college because THEY TOO must have the “college experience,” meanwhile, kids who aren’t special needs that have difficulties with math or science, are being TURNED away from colleges and universities because THEY aren’t GOOD enough.
4. I hate #3.  It makes my blood boil.
5. College, at least in the undergrad arena of academia, is just an extension of high school.

I’m NOT a high school teacher anymore.  I’m a contracted-by-semester instructor at a college.  I have wanted to teach college since I was 19 years old.  I was detoured.  I worked two full-time jobs and attended college full-time so that I could afford tuition and books, my car insurance and my car, so that one day, I too, could FINALLY earn my degree and find a job that someone would respect..  I graduated from a community college with every intent of transferring to another college to finish my undergraduate degree.  I lost my brother. I was impregnated by the SD, aka the BIGGEST asshole in the world who STILL owes me money for child support AND my son’s car.  I was STUCK at a terrible job that paid me nothing and allowed me to be verbally and physically abused by my bosses (pre-sexual harassment era).  I left the job.  I had the baby.  I married someone else and a year later we had a child.  I went back to college in my mid-20s with the intent that *I* would do better this time.  I had two little kids and would take telecourses and night courses for YEARS and YEARS.  This time, I said to myself, I would be successful.  I will not accept failure.  I will be the best that I could be.

I graduated with high honors with my BA.  I went to grad school (and at this point had 3 kids, one a newborn when I went back to grad school after taking a year off) and graduated with super high grades.  I busted my ass every single night and twice on weekends to succeed.  I competed with very bright and some not so very bright individuals in grad school.  It was EXHAUSTING at times… just trying to keep up with it all.

I was also shut out of every job interview, or brought back for several with the same school district only to receive a crumpled postcard thanking me for applying but that I was not the one they chose.  After my first few years teaching, I spent 5 years trying to get back into it.  The first summer after being let go, I went on 52 interviews.  I was called back for 30.  I was a finalist at 12.  I didn’t get a damned thing.  Each summer it tapered off until I was receiving no phone calls and very little rejection postcards thanking me for thinking about their school.

I have tried different jobs.  I have tried to get into different fields.  And, when I get to the point where I’m tired of being discarded because I have a Masters (and therefore am too expensive), do not coach a sport, or am not willing to work for shit wages in a small town 12 states away… for what? I temporary job that ends in December?

So, I looked out into the sea of faces that show up to my classes.  I wonder how many kids will “make it” out there.  And, then it hits me…

The kid who wrote, “They soon changes their style of the long dress and cloths and started waring something fresher,” will graduate from college, get a FANTANSTIC FUCKING job making LOTS and LOTS of money, and will not ever give a second thought to the time, during his first semester of his first year of college…that his high-strung-anal-about-writing history teacher failed him for writing like a deranged monkey on crack. 

I’m 40.  I’m inching closer to a retirement that I have nothing saved for.  I have bounced around from temporary job to sucky job back to temporary job and have yet to find solace in a career.  I have yet to FIND a career “destination” that has made me feel as though I’ve done something well, or even good, maybe a little gooder.  Everyone keeps telling me to get my PhD and then I can teach college for real instead of semester-by-semester.

I can’t do it.  I think I’ve given all that I can give.  I’m tired.  I’m worn out.  I’m frustrated.  And, there’s NO way in HELL that I’ll pass the GRE because *I*, my friends, am a self-proclaimed math-tard that has a mental block when it comes to high-level maths… mostly because I do not ever USE high-level math.  And, I’m also reminded (indirectly) that until I get a PhD from an accredited college or university, that I will never find permanence.

I just want to know when I will have done ENOUGH to feel secure in a job.