Pleas(e).

"Professor I really Have a hard time understanding the assignement please professor can I have until Friday to complete evrything I beg you professor to give me that chance i have 12 credits this summer so much work Understand me can we meet so we can talk I really need that chance please Professor"

The above missive arrived in my inbox the morning that the assignment was due. This is the third such plea I have received from this student. Three appointments to explain to her ; one meeting for which hir was 30 minutes late.

Hir has had many tragedies this term, including two relatives suddenly admitted to the ER the night before an assignment is due. But hir doesn't seem too upset in class, even smiling and giggling at hir book bag. No wait, that is a prohibited cell phone in the bag, so casually placed on the chair next to hir.

Summer school doesn't melt snowflakes.

- Tina from Timbuktu

More on the Secret Life of the Duck

Back in January, I was offered a position at a California college for Fall 2013 (yeah, this place likes to get their scheduling done way early).  I have since moved in with my mother.  The town here has a wonderful Norman Romwell-like environment.

No more 130 degree heat during the summer.  No more drunks.  No gangs, except for the wannabees who do more tagging than anything else.  The people in this town are more down to earth and SANE!

This town has been blessed with a beautiful park along the river, home to all sorts of wildlife:  squirrels, birds, fish, turtles, lizards, ducks, beavers...  There are also many beaches and grassy knolls along the river where one can go swimming.

Delayed retirement and the lost generation. From Amelia from Abilene.

I'm staying
next year, too!

I found this article on proffie's plans to delay retirement (from InsideHigherEd) both interesting and encouraging, particularly towards the bottom, where they talk about the effect on universities as a whole and on creating a lost generation of academics who languish in adjunct positions because no one moves out at the top.

It seems to me that it would be useful to have the the over 65 proffies take the adjunct work, while the early/mid-career folks get the full-time gigs?

Of course, I am part of the problem. Complaining aside, I love what I do, and I don't really see myself wanting to retire. Maybe I'll feel differently in 25 years. But if I could teach maybe two classes one term a year as an adjunct and have the rest of the year to travel, enjoy hypothetical grandchildren, etc., that would be appealing, especially if adjuncts were included in some elements of campus life like graduation, campus events, etc.

Maybe?


Flava:

Some 74 percent of professors aged 49-67 plan to delay retirement past age 65 or never retire at all, according to a new Fidelity Investments study of higher education faculty. While 69 percent of those surveyed cited financial concerns, an even higher percentage of professors said love of their careers factored into their decision.

“While many would assume that delayed retirement would be solely due to economic reasons, surprisingly 8 in 10 -- 81 percent -- cited personal or professional reasons for delayed retirement,” said John Rangoni, vice president of tax exempt services at Fidelity. “Higher education employees, especially faculty, are deeply committed to their students, education and the institutions they serve.”

MORE. 

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In Which Bella Berates Herself for Taking on This Summer Class

Please send pizza.
And gin.

I knew I did not want to teach over the summer.  I knew I hated correcting like I hate nearly nothing else, and that I NEEDED a break from it.

But, I admit it, I wanted the money.  I could have lived without it, but we have no back porch.  And teaching this course puts that just in reach.  And I said, sure, fuck it, I'll just suck it up and teach a COMP COURSE over five weeks.  It will be over before I know it.

My students are not really that bad.  They are hard working.  They are amazing me really.  But I want to kill myself.  I really do.  I don't think I can take it.  My procrastination skills have gone off the hizzy.  I am truly out of my mind, blowing off the correcting until it cannot wait and pulling all nighters and drinking like a college student, ferchristsakes. 

I will never do this again.  Never never never never never.

Five Years Ago on RYS.

June 17, 2008

The YMGTC Problem.

I think the "you must go to college" attitude is contributory to other social ills as well:

1. The continued extension of adolescence and delay of adulthood. If you're still in school, you're still a kid. Ergo, no need to grow up and take responsibility for yourself. It doesn't take a very keen eye to see this played out on many, probably most, college campuses.
2. A dismissive and disrespectful attitude toward blue collar work and workers. I'm 38 years old. My father's generation was probably the last to, as a cohort, be raised with the expectation that a good day's work preceded a good day's pay. Most of my generation, and certainly the ones since, does not understand manual labor. It's something to be done by the uneducated and unskilled (they don't even have a proper idea of what skilled manual labor is anymore). Kids now think that hard work is beneath them, and so is anyone who earns their bread by it.
3. A lack of common sense. Too many kids now have everything handed to them, and the expectation of a college degree is one of them. This most recent crop of freshmen are part of a generation raised with the expectation that everything can be solved by electronics. They have no damned common sense. Do I sound like my grandfather? Read The Last American Man, a biography of Eustace Conway. Kids literally without enough sense to come in out of the rain or run from a dangerous situation.
4. The ongoing deterioration of high school. High schools no longer teach many basic skills. The expectation is that they shouldn't. Why? I have no idea. You can pick from two dozen AP courses designed to get you into college, but in most schools you can't get basic hands-on time with power tools or engines, can't learn how to balance a checkbook, build a budget, get a mortgage or manage a home.You can take a class requiring detailed discussion of the history of modern Europe, but not one in the basic requirements of informed citizenship. It's disgraceful. High school aren't "high" -- they're low-rent college prep, or a way to mark time on your journey to service-sector job hell.
5. The YMGTC attitude is also damaging the middle class. I saw a lecture recently by an economist who pointed out that not too many years ago you could be successful and move your family into solid middle class territory with a high-school diploma and a blue-collar manufacturing job that paid decent wages. It was assumed -- and not erroneously -- that almost anyone with that diploma and a willingness to work could support a small family. Now? Leaving aside that most of those jobs are gone, the bar for entry to the middle class is four years and tens of thousands of dollars higher. Until the 1970s, society provided the tools to enter the middle class. Now, Mom and Dad must provide those tools. Over time, this is doing nothing but widening the have/have not gap.

As the saying goes, nothing good can come of this.

Finally.