The Adjunct

Note: The following correspondence appears unedited except for the omission of names. English Writing 211 (EWRT 211) is the prerequisite course for English 1A, Freshman Composition.

Hi Professor STAFF,

I am concern about my grade in Ewrt 211. I didn’t do so well on the first essay, and I wanted to know my percentage in the class? I would like to know whether I should stay or drop the class because of my low performance since the drop deadline is coming up?

-Student

Dear Student,

Everyone did poorly on the first essay. You are in this class because your skills were evaluated, and they were deemed not ready for English 1A. If you had passed the first essay, then that would have indicated that you were ready for 1A. What you must do is not quit, and also not expect to instantly have the required skills through no effort of your own. Instead, focus on what you did wrong on your first essay, and how you can improve those areas.

Did you read the comments that I gave you?
Did you identify the areas within the essay that are unacceptable?
Did you attempt, while writing your current essay, to improve upon your skill in these areas and not make the same mistakes?
Did you plan to rewrite your first essay again and improve upon your work?

This is what is required for this class. You have not been sentenced to one quarter of sitting idle until you accrue enough classroom hours to qualify for 1A. You shall not be able to enter 1A without the necessary composition skills. Or, if you somehow enter it with these skills, then you shall not be able to pass it.

The point of this class is to bring your skills up to the proper level, not to already have the required skills. You are not expected to pass the first essay; I explained this repeatedly. You are expected to take it home, focus on the areas that are in need of improvement, and rewrite, revise, and improve.

Have you been reading the homework? When it is difficult, have you been doing the practice questions until you understand it easily?

This is what the class requires. Some students take 211 two or even three times before they can be ready for 1A.

In the end, if you drop out now, then you’ll just have to take the class again in the fall. If you take the class now and work hard, then maybe you will learn a few things, improve upon your skills, and get into 1A. If you do not pass (no one fails this class, the only score awarded is a P or NP), you’ll still have to take it again in the fall, but perhaps your skill will still have improved and you will have a better chance of passing in the fall.

No one ever succeeded in college, or at anything for that matter, by quitting when they didn’t instantly do things perfectly.

In regards to your question, your current score in the class, including all tests, writer’s journals, and class participation, is at 81.2%, which is passing.

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

-Professor STAFF

They are having a rally in Berkeley regarding social security fairness for teachers. If you are a teacher (or just think we do work that deserves social security) and live in the area then please try and attend.

Numerous organizations will be using this rally as a model to spark action in other cities and states.

“An Energizing Rally For Social Security Fairness For Teachers”

You’ll be entertained and informed.

Sat. May 30, 11:00am – 12:30pm. Location: Berkeley Community Theater at Berkeley High School, 1930 Allston Way, Berkeley.

Parking: Allston Garage, one block east of school, $5

BART: One block south, one block west of downtown Berkeley Station

This is a One-Time Shot!

Two bills have recently been presented to our legislators. These bills, if passed, would repeal two unjust laws (the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset) that have financially disadvantaged teachers for decades.

These two unfair laws dictate that teachers who worked in the public sector prior to teaching, or during teaching, may not collect full Social Security benefits at levels that other contributors do, even when they paid the same amounts as others into the Social Security System. Furthermore, teachers may not collect Social Security benefits, at the same amounts as others, from deceased spouses, or collect full Social Security benefits that they earned as a dependent spouse.

President Obama stated he would approve the new legislation if it reaches his desk. So the time is right to act on this.

Most of the public, unfortunately, is not aware of this injustice facing teachers. In fact, many teachers are not even aware of it until they retire. While they receive Social Security statements each year stating what they will receive upon retirement, it is only later that
they learn the statements don’t apply to them because they are teachers in CA. And many, who became teachers later in life, were not told ahead of time that they would forfeit Social Security benefits when they became teachers.

This is it! We are so close — but we need you to show up and be counted! We have the press. We have a beautiful theater that holds 3,500 people. If everyone who came to our first rally brings five other people, we’ll fill the theater! Plus — You’ll have a great time and get informed!

Janet Roosevelt, niece of FDR and Eleanor will speak.

Steve De Peu, CTA retirement committee advisor, will inform you on the impact of the GPO and WEP and what NEA is doing to help repeal this legislation.

Mark Sternberger, NEA Board of Directors, will provide us with more information.

Gail Mendes, Secretary/Treasurer of CTA will also honor us with her presence.

You will be entertained by a fabulous band — The Angry Tired Teachers! They write their own lyrics and will tailor their songs to our cause. They will energize you, and make you smile.

For more information about the rally, or for more information regarding Social Security fairness, visit our website: www.socialsecurityfairness.com

It was time to teach “Brownies” again. Last quarter, I had an interesting incident while teaching this story. This quarter I also found myself disheartened, but in a completely different way.

A key element in the story is that the Brownie’s fathers lived through segregation. So when we began discussing the fathers, and the concept of racial and social inheritance, I asked the question, “What did their fathers live through?”

Blank stares.

“Alright,” I said, “if this story takes place in the eighties, and these girls are about ten or eleven years old, then what was happening in this nation when their parents were their age?”

More stares. One student put his head down.

“Come on, people!” I clapped my hands to try and wake them up. “What was going on in this country in the late fifties and mid-sixties? What did all their fathers, all African-Americans for that matter, live through?”

“Slavery?” a particularly dull students asked.

Words failed me.

Slavery? Slavery!

“In 1960?” I asked her.

“All black people were slaves,” she told me cautiously.

“In 1960?” I asked again, incredulously. “When did slavery end? For God’s sake, when was the civil war?”

“The war was in the thirties,” another voice mumbled. “So that’s…was it 1938?”

You heard it here first: Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves in 1938. Or possibly 1960. At this point, the student who had guessed slavery existed in 1960, placed her head down on her desk, and closed her eyes.

Yes, you are.

I recently attended a department meeting where a fellow adjunct asked the question, “Why do part-time instructors outnumber full-timers nearly 3-1?”

Indeed, the meeting was filled with adjuncts; only a few elderly full-time instructors were in attendance. I’d always known the adjuncts outnumbered tenured, but it never dawned on me by just how much. I soon learned why.

“It is state law that colleges keep a ratio of 75/25 between full-time and part-time instructors.”

This took a moment to settle in, but when it did there were mutterings of discontent in this mostly adjunct crowd.

“You’re saying that the state requires that this college have 75% full-time instructors?” someone asked in shock. “That can’t be right! What’s the ratio in our department?”

The chair chuckled softly.

“We are almost exactly 75% part-timers. The exact opposite.”

He went on to explain that most departments had the same ratio as ours, and that he didn’t know of any college in the state that was any different.

I imagined if every college in the state suddenly had to go from 75% adjunct instructors to 25%. I’m working at three districts right now, and would likely lose my job at all three of them. However, while they were purging part-time instructors, they would also being hiring enough full-timers to triple their current numbers. Chances would also be likely that I’d get a full-time position at one of those three colleges, or somewhere else.

“So why doesn’t the state enforce the 75/25 law?” I asked.

“They do,” our chair told us. “They fine all colleges that do not comply with the law. The problem is that it is cheaper by far for the colleges to pay the fine than to hire full-time instructors.”

People went on to ask about the college’s financial situation, etc. The chair told us the college was doing fine; we were very profitable. Soon the conversation drifted to talk about our lack of offices, and supplies, and so forth and so on. I felt a growing discontent within me, and my pen absently scribbled down the following words in my notebook, from which I drew the thoughts of this entry:

They’d rather break the law than give us a job with healthcare, and security.
College professors.
What will become of us?

“Why don’t you update your blog anymore?”

I was embarrassed just as much with the question as I was with the answer.

I had been so excited to get this site up and running, and then just when things were rolling I fell into a series of very unfortunate circumstances. I broke my foot and I broke my jaw, and as a result I broke my spirit for keeping most of the pleasures in my life in order. One of those pleasures was this blog.

I’ll give a much more detailed foot and mouth report later, but here is an excerpt from a letter I wrote to friend in which I describe what’s been going on these past two months. I think I capture my shattered hopes and dreams quite nicely.

My life has gone to absolute hell these last two weeks.

I haven’t even been able to stay on top of my emails. It’s a wonder I am still employed.

My foot is in a cast, and I have to go everywhere on crutches. This means I can go NOWHERE; you can’t get far on crutches. At work, I can’t even get from my classroom to the mailroom because it is too fucking far. They won’t offer any assistance for me (the disability resource center is for STUDENTS, and I am not a students). I get no paid time off. I have 7 more weeks of this.

I spend all my time at home in bed or in the reclining chair. Getting to the bathroom is hard. At night, my upstairs neighbor blasts us with endless thumping music from 11:00pm -6:00am. I feel like I am in a coffin.

And then there’s the bad part.

The bad part is that something is horribly wrong with my jaw. It has been hurting for months now, getting worse, and worse. I can barely eat, because it is so painful to chew. Yesterday I ate only soup all day. I went to the doctor, and they said to go to the dentist. I went to the dentist and he had no idea what was wrong with me; he pulled a tooth out of my mouth but it didn’t work. It is not going away and is freaking me out.

The closest anyone has come to a diagnosis is this bullshit umbrella term called TMJ, which basically just means “extreme jaw pain the won’t go away.” They treat it by putting you on musscle relaxers for the rest of your life. Jaw hurting today? Take this pill. That’s about it. No cure, just one of those things we don’t understand. I’ll spend the rest of my life like this. I’ll never be able to eat a hardroll sandwich again.

I am not doing well.

Suffice it to say, my enthusiasm for web logging did not sustain itself. I could barely keep on top of my grading, let alone the other aspects of my life.

However, I do not offer this up as excuse, but a humble explanation to the questiom, “Why no updates?”

I plan to rectify the situation. Although my foot is still in a cast, my jaw still in pain, and my upstairs neighbor still a tremendous douchebag, my spirit has slowly returned. As you can see from the last two posts, this current one, and the posts to come: I’m back, baby!

I also realize that the saddest thing on the entire internet is a dead blog whose final post reads: I’m back, and the blogging shall continue. I wrote several days of posts in advance, to be published at a healthy rate, as an insurance policy against that happening to me.

Here we go again!

After reflecting upon my last post, I did not feel entirely satisfied with it being placed under the category of The sad, secret lives of adjuncts.

True, dealing with difficult students can be frustrating at times, but yesterday’s incident did not really depress me (unless I started considering these students as the future of humanity, in which case yes).

As I continued to think about this, numerous other incidents involving jaw-droppingly thick students came rushing to mind. In light of my recent blogger’s block, I decided to encourage all forms of professorial diatribes by adding a new category: Zombie Students Need Brains.

Oh, Professorial Diatribes might be another good one!

Off we go!

Today, a student showed up to my class with a scantron.

She wanted to know how long the test was.

I told her there was no test today, or any day, because it was a composition class (essays and discussion only). We’re about halfway through the semester at this point.

She insisted that I had instructed them to bring scantrons for the test. I told her I didn’t even know how the fucking scantron machine works, and that if she can find the word scantron anywhere in my syllabus, or calendar, or handouts then I will let her leave the class with an instant A.

She sifted through her crumpled handouts for about ten minutes.

Then two of her friends came into class and pulled out their scantrons. Apparently she had reminded them about the test today…