It's the end of the first semester I haven't taught since I started teaching in fall of '03 as a graduate teaching assistant.
When I first started teaching, I loved it. I loved helping students go from terrified of writing to kind of taking for granted that they'd be able to do it, and do it well. I didn't think I'd ever stop loving it.
I was wrong. I don't know exactly when it happened, but at some point, I just...stopped enjoying it. I'm not sure when, so it had to have been a gradual process. I can't even put my finger on where I started to hate it, even.
It wasn't just the grading. I always hated that. I came to hate student attitudes toward classes, professors, and each other.
I am glad to be off campus. Literally the only thing I miss about teaching is the paycheck. And I may be able to eventually replace that income by writing (even if I'm not holding my breath).
This post was brought to you by Facebook's ridiculous "your memories" suggested posts, and the post about turning in final grades last spring.
56 minutes ago
It's hard to pinpoint that 'one' thing that tips one over the top...
ReplyDeleteKinda, yeah. I'm happier not being around people, anyway.
DeleteI am guessing that your major was in English or literature. My mother was a book whore who taught me to read
ReplyDeleteusing the phonics method. I was reading at a second-grade level before I entered Kindergarten. By age 14, I
was reading high school and college level testbooks on science, physics, astronomy, etc. I got all her hand-
me-downs including Steinbeck, Hemmingway, American classics like The Carpetbagger, and the sequel Nevada Smith,
The Godfather, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Catch 22, MASH, 2001: A Space Oddyssy, Jaws, etc.
Not many 14-year-olds can claim to have read 1984 and A Tale of Two Cities. I even read her tawrdy romance
novels. She was a big fan of SciFi and the anti-heroes like Paul Kersey (Death Wish,) Dirty Harry and Max Boland,
The Executioner. Had she lived long enough to see the series 24 she would have wet her panties over Jack Bauer.
I was a whiz at math, science, American and world history and geography, but I hated English with a passion!
The comic Sam Kinison once said that one of his teachers said he was so stupid, he did not know the difference
between a verb and a noun. His response was "F*%k you!" That is me. So please do not grade me on my post.
You may be selling yourself short by thinking that academa is the be-all and end-all of your professional life.
Consider proof reading. Someone once stated that instruction manuals were translated from Chinese to English
by people who could only read Polish. Try technical writing, which might require some research. There are a
pletora of corporations who would hire you to do the jobs the current generation is too illiterate to accomplish.
These jobs can be done in the privacy of your own home. Get out there and kick some ass!
Yeah, I majored in English. Got my MA in English, too, and watched in utter bewilderment as people who chose that major because they loved books and reading came to hate reading. "It's just not fun anymore, since I do it for a living..." Yeah it was. Teaching those who really want to learn is still fun, but that was maybe two in a section of 25 students.
DeleteI recently edited a memoir for a local's dad--the dad's in TX, and had one hell of an interesting life. I'd love to meet this guy's dad, someday.
Mostly, though, I write fiction, try to keep up with housework, and referee (once you have more than one kid, that takes up most of the parenting duties). I don't have quite enough energy anymore to do everything I need to do.
(I read 1984 when I was 14, then Dune. Both books helped shape my political opinions. Then I read Brave New World with a class in my MA studies, which solidified everything nicely)