Back to School

Well hello there, blogland.

I'm thinking that if I start this blogging thing up again, I should probably start a new blog, since I'm now in an entirely new place in my life. That, of course, would require coming up with a new blog name, the thought of which exhausts me, so for now I'll just keep using this one.

So, here I am, on the other coast, back at work, back near family, back on the academic track. How do I feel? No easy way to answer that question. At times, exhilarated*; at others, despairing; most of the time, though, simply exhausted.

While for the last two years my life was uncomplicated, slow-paced, and pretty much the same domestic routine every single day, now my (waking) life is divided up into three distinct kinds of time, each demanding something different from me: work-time, mommy-time (with a child who is not getting enough of mommy these days, though clearly enjoying the new and improved daddy-time) and partner-time (with a partner who is now unemployed and full of angst and perhaps regret about our decision to leave his job).

At work, which is today's focus, I'm teaching a mega-huge survey lecture course (140 with only one TA), a regular-sized (30) course on a special topic, and a small grad seminar. I'm also chairing a program, and two committees. I'm also commuting 1.5 hours each way, three days a week (though most of that time is on public transportation, where I can get work done). There are plenty of people out there who easily manage such a schedule, but, alas, I ain't one of them. It's hard enough for me to keep my energy level high enough to remain enthusiastic, focused and articulate for all my courses and meetings. But even harder is having to shift gears between very different modes of presentation--to go from lecturing, to lecture/discussion, to discussion modes of teaching, to leading a meeting of my peers, sometimes one right after the other. And I haven't even mentioned research mode, which frankly hasn't happened yet this semester aside from a few stolen moments here and there.

But what's really kicking my butt this semester is being confronted with the remarkably low level of literacy, writing skills, and, most troubling of all, curiosity of the majority of my students. Many if not most of the students at the big state school where I teach come from working-class backgrounds, many are first or second generation immigrants, most of them are busier than I am, holding down full-time jobs, raising and supporting families, on top of going to school. They are, on the whole, interesting, smart people, but they are also, on the whole, not at all prepared for college-level humanities work. By which I mean, for example, that they feel put upon when asked to do something so strenuous as to actually read a whole book. Reading is difficult and unpleasant for them, something to be avoided at all costs. Many of them, I'm learning, don't even buy the books for class--they just catch what they can from lectures and the endless supply of cliff-note type material online. When asked, as I ask them periodically, to write in class about what they're reading, many can't even remember, let alone spell, the main characters of the novel we're talking about.

This still has the power to shock me. I somehow FORGOT that this was the case (and was it this bad before I left? could it have gotten worse in 2 years?). I came back into the classroom wanting to talk about the things that are interesting to me, rather than trying to discover and work from the things that are interesting to them, or, more importantly, to market to them the very idea that reading is worth their while. There is a huge gap between where I'm coming from and where they're coming from. I'm not being a snob here, I'm just stating a fact, one that has everything to do with the differences of class and race/ethnicity between me and the majority of my students. While part of me is deeply committed to trying to bridge that gap, and trying to inspire my students to become readers and thinkers, another part of me doesn't feel up to the task.

Don't get me wrong. Many of them do try, and a number of them blow me away with their insights and writing skills. I'm just kvetching in the way we all do in this profession.

Basically, teaching is damn hard. And now I must go grade midterms, since that is what this time is slotted for and time is of the essence these days.


*Apparently, this is not a word I write often, since I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to make the squiggly red spell-check line go away, and had finally to look it up.