Why Would I Do That Again?

As we near the end of July, school posters, ads, and reminders pop up all over the place. Do I miss teaching? YES! (Well, let's qualify that....) I miss the kids and the challenges they give me, but I do not miss the administrative and bureaucratic BS that now goes with the profession.

Just the other day, I realized that in one small hour on the phone about a job interview. I was going to be a TA (Teaching Assistant) for an online university based in Clinton, IA. The people on the other end of the phone were nice people, well-intentioned (I think), but hardly aware of what grading papers in an English class is like.

Over the 34 years I taught English, I had learned to manage the barrage of papers that I created for myself. Sometimes I would give assignments that required one sentence answers to questions; sometimes I would give multiple choice assignments, and once a week, I would give an essay. These essays would range from usually around two pages to more than that. But, I knew how to budget my time, because I felt that if a student was going to spend the time writing this assignment, then I certainly should take the time to go over every bit of it and make it a colorful red. I had over 125 students, and that meant reading and marking over 250 pages sometimes. (Depending on if everyone turned in the assignment and met the required length.) I did this every week for the 36 weeks of school for 34 years.

When I asked how many students I would be responsible for, the lady told me 30-60. When I asked how many pages each assignment was, I was told 2-8 pages. What was I getting paid for this? Approximately 850 dollars for five weeks, or about 160 dollars a week. I was expected to get the papers back to students within 48 hours, I was to use a rubric to grade the papers and I could only work 12 a week, max. Now, if I followed their procedure, students may not get what I thought was a good review of their work, as I would have to spend less time on each page, and I would not get to use the same amount of red ink I was used. But the final straw, as I listened to the "college people of higher learning" was that they really did not care about quality, they only cared about quantity.

Later in the day, I read that there over 2000 "for Profit" universities in the US alone. And, according to the article in USA Today, they were going to have to start meeting certain standards, just like the secondary schools now have to do. So, Arne Duncan, who ran the Chicago Public Schools into the ground, and his colleagues in the US Dept. of Education now want to restrict the learning of folks at colleges and subject them to the same standards of what appears to be the No Child Left Behind Act. (Which I call The Every Child Becomes Mediocre Act)

After hearing this, and seeing the workload and the pay, I came to a conclusion. I would be better off spending my time floating in the pool and working at the museum and writing than I would be grading papers.

I mean, after all, I was not going to be the assistant, I was going to be the teacher. Been there, done that....

Doughnut