Beware the cynics

I love teaching. I love the stage, and more importantly the captive audience. As a kid, I pictured myself making a sold-out audience roll in the aisles until their sides burst. However, as time wore on, I realized I wasn’t that funny. I can’t retell jokes very well; I am too lazy to write a script, and now when I write, I have a tendency to take myself too seriously. Teaching, on the other hand, gives me the opportunity to write a minimal script, riff off student comments, and more importantly, I know they will (coerced perhaps) come back for the next show. Now that I am a fledgling adjunct instructor at an “inner-city” community college, I feel that my love of teaching is being put to the test. It’s not the content that makes me discontent, but rather I worry about my current position providing the economic stability needed to maintain a feeling of control beyond the classroom.
In my three short weeks working at this institution, I talked to many professional adjuncts. Some have done this for as many as 17 years. They tell me stories of teaching a couple of classes here, another couple of classes there, and working a dean to sign approval for overload at another institution. I gather adjuncting creates gypsy academics, selling their talents to various academic communities, adjusting their syllabi to meet the rhetoric of the particular institution, and moving on. While these professionals talk about the relative freedom, I can’t help but notice a tongue-in-cheek cynicism coloring their commentary about their academic and teaching interest. I recall one conversation in particular where one of my fellow adjuncts described a new book she was being required teach. I asked her if it was a good book, and she replied that she doesn’t know, the students have to read it not her. This scares me.
Throughout my professional career, I gravitated towards the cynics. When I didn’t have much power, in terms of determining policy governing me, I found myself speaking out of the corners of my mouth decrying the shortsighted people around me. I can foresee commiserating with other adjuncts about how people in the trenches never receive adequate compensation for their effort. I don’t want this. I need to find some other anchor to compliment the joy I get from standing in front of the class and working out revision plans for first year, and in most cases first generation, college students. If I don’t I fear this blog, and more importantly my family life, will be about looking for an affordable two-dollar cup of coffee.