I guess it was only a matter of time before I weighed in on this issue. The whole LIFO policy (Last In First Out) is as mundane and unnecessary as tenuring in universities. I’ve taught at community colleges, universities, private universities, and even high schools and I can tell you that in all those circumstances, 90% of the time the teachers that need to get the fuck out are the old war horses still trudging along using up valuable oxygen. That may seem harsh, but if the purpose of educating is to, well, EDUCATE, and to keep up with current methodologies and pedagogy WHILE going with the modern flow of society (because don’t kid yourself, teaching is as much about knowledge you can impart as it is about how well you can connect with your students) then the majority of the teachers who were first in need to be first out.  Just that simple.

I don’t believe in seniority or tenure because it encourages laziness. Post-secondary professors feel almost invincible because they basically can’t be fired for much. I understand the reasoning behind it but I don’t think it’s necessary anymore. Believe me, many of my undergrad and grad profs, though they were fun people, should not have been teaching anymore. Except for my religious studies professor who has an ancient elfin man who, it was rumored, wrote gay novels. I believe this to be true only because he never stopped talking about the young men he met while teaching in Morocco – and only to me in our office hour meetings. But the rest were still teaching from yellowed notes and outdated research. They have just fallen into this repetitive cycle. They refused to keep up with the times. My first semester in grad school was also my first time teaching a college class and my mentor raked me over the coals for breaking the class into small groups at one point in the session because it encouraged “social butterflyism and no real work being done), when in fact, if done properly, leads to great dialogue and knowledge sharing. Another told me to stop being funny because it wasn’t my job to entertain them. What is teaching if not performance?

I think seniority works ONLY if you have a pool of teachers all operating at the same level with near close “marks” (however you define that). Length of time should not dictate your employment stability. I get annoyed that I am pushed down the class allotment ladder every semester when I know I am a better professor than many of my peers who have NO idea how to connect and educated (at least in the current environ I teach in). All this being said, I do understand that for many educators, especially pre-post-secondary, have their hands tied with bullshit state-run claptraps such as the standardized test which is used to not only given teacher bonuses but to determine funding for schools. Those tests are pathetic – I know because I had to “teach-to-test” when I had my brief high school stint. I was told to abandon the curriculum and focus on preparing them to pass the test. So it became a process of force feeding information which became useless after the test. And by the end of the semester they had learned nothing. Ironically, I agree with these kinds of tests as the exist in the U.K. because the process and parameters are different.

If students and parents love a teacher and think they are strong educators then why resort to a policy that gets rid of them in favor of some embittered one who occasionally pops in a video to quell the angry teenage masses? How can we say we value education so much in this country when we clearly have a history of abusing it, i.e., No Child Left Behind? And how can we claim to have the best practices and processes when other “lesser” countries are clearly beating us to a pulp when it comes to academic standards and performance? Is NO ONE paying attention here?

By the way, this woman is a waste of space. And does anyone else think she looks like the bastard love child of Voldemort and Dolores Umbridge. I mean seriously. Someone fire this woman.

40 states are coping with budget shortfalls totaling $140 billion, which will threaten America’s 14,000 school districts for the next five years, one analyst said Thursday. Courtesy of CNN.com

I feel like we keep reviving these dead horses into heaving and gasping pointless burdens.

It is no surprise that something like this would rile me up – I’m an educator. It’s my bread and butter. I’ve taught college/university classes since I was a grad school in 2002. I love it and I have my days when I abhor it. There are moments I want to set the self-entitled lazy students on fire. There are days they inspire me to never give up.

I came to highly value education once I got to college. The school I went to back in Kuwait and the high school I attended in Florida were damned good schools (though the latter has horribly slipped into a quagmire of student-centeredness). I was just a shitty student – truly. I cared more about hanging out with my friends and running around the theatre like a fool – surprisingly I only skipped school ONCE in my entire high school career.

But my high school teachers were awesome educators who cared and had their shit together. So did my college profs. Until I told all of them I wanted to be a teacher – they laughed or told me to pick another career quickly. I thought they were just joshing me.

Silly me…

I discovered VERY quickly that being an educator is more than just being able to relate information to brick walls in fluorescent hovels. Aside from the general lackadaisical you-owe-me attitudes of students, who see education as a product thanks to the continued corporatization of the university system and the ever present commodity fetishism of a tech-zombie consumer culture, one has to travel the dangerous gauntlet of education politics which includes everything from appeasing parents and administration to making sure your students pass these (ridiculous) state-designed competency tests (which most school board members would flunk). This doesn’t happen as much in college but manifests itself in worse ways. I split my time between live courses and online education – the latter is a soul sucker but a means of making money. Because you are disembodied voice the students tend to think you’re nothing more than a glorified retail clerk (one student took issue with my correcting they way he addressed me: he chose to use my first name, I preferred my title and last time – he refused to “cater to [my] ego”). In both realms I have to deal with this nasty and morally disgusting practice where if a student complains enough then they get their way because tuition dollars are at risk. And with funding continually being cut it won’t be long before the inmates are fully running the asylum. Don’t believe me? Take a gander”

1) I have had several students who plagiarized essays, in some case the ENTIRE thing, and even with proof in my hand I was asked to change the grade, allow a revision, or had their final course grades changed behind my back.

2) One particular trog of a department head agreed with a student who berated me for not simply giving him the answers to all his questions even though all the information he needed was in the syllabus. As he said, “I don’t pay you to tell me to where to find the info, I pay you to just tell me everything I need.” Note: You don’t pay me you bottomfeeder.

3) “Do your best to help students through all their difficult situations.” Maybe that works in high school (although even when I taught high school for a VERY short stint, I treated those kids like adults accountable for everything. If you pander to them, they smell the blood and run with it.) but in a college that should have NO place. I am not your therapist or your parent – I can empathize and sympathize but at the end of the day you need to do the work and earn your degree.

I could go on and on – but those pro-student attitudes were filtered up from high schools where parents started running the show. Under-performing students just get processed through because we don’t want to “discourage” people. Look, if you’re a lazy bastard with zero brain capability then you don’t need to be in school. The only thing you need to learn is that when the bell goes “Ding!” you shake out and season the fries – harsh, but true. We need to get rid of this babying attitude towards education. It’s a privilege that should be earned and not shoved down throats.

But what is filtering down from colleges thanks to all these budget cuts is the corporatization of high schools (Kathy Black is the first sign of this apocalypse – mark my words). In Brooklyn, a technical high school is being shut down due to poor performances and transformed into a 6-year A.A. degree terminating technical school run by IBM. All the students and teachers get the boot. Now while a part of me agrees with this, because frankly your first two years of college are a rehash of four years of high school, a part of me sees this as somewhat dangerous. Or maybe I am being a luddite and need to step into the light of modern education as being something more transformative and useful. I fear that may result in the complete death of the liberal arts and arts programs, which have become increasingly seen as “not useful.” There are things to be learned backstage in the roiling world of pubescent theatres that one cannot learn ANYWHERE else.  Believe me…

But aside from pedagogical concerns and preferred methodologies WHY is there no money for schools? HOW is it possible that we keep raising taxes, keep beautifying pointless public structures (i.e., MTA train stations – I need something pretty to look at and be in while I am waiting for a train?), and keep wasting money on way-too-high salaries of idiots in positions of power? I will freely admit that I don’t get all the ins and outs of education economics, but it seems to me, that if we can freely partition money to making prisoners have better lives with their TV, education programs, therapists, life coaching and job interview training then why not move that money to students? Or better yet, tell your children to commit crimes because they’ll be able to get a proper education from the slammer. (And WHY are we concerned about the conditions of living of prisoners?)

I will freely admit and agree that the education system in the U.S. sucks – and I am a product of one of the worst ones (Florida). Everyone is trapped in this teaching-to-test mentality with teacher-from-the-box classes. We complain that other “backwards” countries keep surpassing us – well – DUH! They VALUE education – not to say they don’t have their fair share of problems. But the expectations are high and there is personal accountability.

And at the end of day, despite all my frustrations, I know that I look forward to getting into a classroom, making my students laugh and enjoy learning, and having them leave my class as better people and students than when they came in. At the end of the day, as underpaid as I am, I like doing what I do. I just wish I was allowed to do it without the ridiculous restrictions and expectations that have nothing to do with education.

(going through all my old blog posts from years ago is proving to be a revelatory and depressing activity – what in the hell was WRONG with me then??)

When I was a kid – an eye-rolling opener to ANY anecdote – I used to pour  water down this little ant hole right outside our house and wait for the denizens to come scurrying out.  I was always amazed by the organized chaos and the hierarchy of those with wings, those carrying larva, those trying to find an enemy to fight, and those with no purpose other than to wander.

That is one reason I became a teacher and why I enjoy the process of teaching.  Enjoy is too weak a word, I LOVE it.  I should clarify that I love teaching college, live and in person – a brief stint teaching high school assured my assumption that it is NOT the arena for me.

As a college teacher I love poking and prodding my students – treating the classroom like my own ant farm – undespotically, that is.  Pouring water into their comfort zones and seeing what comes forth in the skittering.  I love getting them to voice their prejudices and biases, to make them proud of their opinions, even if they might not be popular, in an effort to make sure they practice understanding even if they can’t accept .  And I am a bit of a mental voyeur wanting to peek in on both the surface and the hidden thoughts of those people sitting in the desks – people who for four years in high school were sometimes taught what to think not that they COULD think.

Tonight, however, I was shocked – something that is rare for me to experience after 10 years of having been there and done that.  I am not sure if the lack of a live classroom has led me to feel this way, but I am in love with the two classes I teach at a local college.  They are amazing human beings with so much potential – even when it tends itself to aggravation.  They make it enjoyable to teach, even when they frustrate the hell out of  me in their procrastination and urban apathy.

What I most love about them is their ability to digress from one topic to so many others while remaining cogent and aware and introspective.  Tonight, a digression became a full-halt when one of them came out to the class in an effort to deal with her frustration of the opinions being offered against gay marriage and adoption (which, strangely enough, was a digression from dealing with weight subcultures).  A couple of opinions were on the side of the notions being wrong, and screwed up, and messing up children who have to deal with trying to explain having two mommies or two daddies – essentially what are now antiquated ideas and antedeluvian religious broo-haa-ha.  I was completely amazed by the student’s bravery to use herself as a way to silence and educate.  At the end of the day, I don’t know if it worked to do anything other than force people into a muzzle, but my goal is to get them to understand and move past the “ick” factor to a deeper meaning outside of their personal preferences which may or may not be influenced by religious dogma.

Maybe I have become so cynical that I am approaching naivete and am making something out of nothing, but if nothing else I am enjoying finding the love of teaching again…and playing Devil’s Advocate.

Well haven’t I just been the social butterfly and ignoring my blogging responsibilities? I have had a very busy weekend running errands and going out. It was a nice change after a week-long dry spell.

So first if all, let me bitch about doctors. I thoroughly did not enjoy waiting around for 40 minutes only to be see a doctor for less than five minutes and be told they had no clue what was wrong with me. Now….what in the hell can ANYONE surmise in less than five minutes in order to give a prognosis. So I shall do what my auto mechanic always says, wait until the problem gets worse before you bring it in.

And speaking of cars, I finally had a chance to take mine it to get it serviced and to fix a nasty little rattling problem. The first problem is that I woke up 2 hours after my scheduled appointment, took it in anyway, and after four hours it STILL had not gone into the shop, so I went back and picked it up. But the nice part was talking to the courtesy van driver, John, an elderly Brit chap who talked to me about everything from politics to American society. It was very cool to get his perspective on things and was an honor to be called a “very nice and respectable young man.” It made me feel good to hear that. (An acquaintance of mine said today that “you;re one of the few people in this world who is not an asshole”) He had some very interesting views on things and I was somewhat taken aback by his negative views on this country since he had been here for so long, but, he does come from a different time and listening to him talk about how things used to me gave me an even greater perspective on life and this society. It was very cool.

Other than that, I go back to the daily grind of teaching tomorrow. Ugh. I like my students, and it has been awesome to see how fiercely loyal they have become in three days, which they showed when some were asked to volunteer to move out of my class. But this 8 am bullshit is ridiculous

I may just very well get my first REAL job soon. I applied for a publishing/writing company a month ago and hear nothing (this is not the one that I had my interview for, that one was a waste of time), and I got an e-mail this week saying I was one of 8 out of 86 applicants chosen to be interviewed. So who knows? I may actually get to make some real money at a steady pace for a change. It certainly would be nice to pay of all my bills and get the heck out of dodge.

I am really looking forward to starting work on Uz. I met with the creators yesterday and had a great meeting. They were very open to my ideas and changes to help make the show more theatrical and tighter. I think it will be a great experience and I cannot wait to start on it. The dance sequences a lone get my heart jumping. And it will be awesome to work on an original piece that has no precedence set before it. It will be all me! MUAHAHAAHAH!

And finally, and better late than never, my brother and his wife are expecting. So I shall be an Uncle sometime in February. Frightening thought indeed.

I started my first day of teaching for my second summer session. Unlike the first one, however, this one will be a pain in the ass strictly because I will have to teach at 8 am five days a week for six weeks. That is just inhuman and unnecessary punishment for both teacher and student. I am teaching two course of Prep Writing….basically a class for those who failed the placement test and need “help.” Frankly, I don’t mind that. I don’t discriminate between types of students. They either try hard or they don’t. However, and this will sound really stereotypical, but follow me. Out of about 35 students, four were white, three were Asian, and the rest were black. What was interesting about the black percentage is that the majority were female. Now, I know all about the statistics of education and those that make up the underachievers and what not, and as horribly ethnocentric as it is, the reality is that minorities, for a number of reasons, are less apt to do well in colleges that the majority. The simple explanation comes down to powers of politics and cultural assumptions. Don’t get me wrong, I am neither supporting or agreeing with it, I am simply stating that moreso now than ever I can understand why the stereotype can be true. Is it simply turning the social blind eye to those who don’t fit in the cultural mainstream? Why do minorities have to be marginalized. Even I, who is the last person to be tagged as a minority because I “act” so American, have had to deal with that bullshit. I cannot count how many times I have been in situations where a person who does not know me starts talking very slowly the minute they see me or my name, as if I do not speak the language. Surprise to those who make that mistake when I end up rattling off words that they can’t even understand. And I don’t do that to show off my linguistic skills, but to prove that this pre-judging stereotypical bullshit is just that. It is amazing how detrimental stereotypes are, and I often wonder if certain groups often fall into those stereotypes because they are forced into it. It’s tough sometimes to fight the norm and the assumptions. But I tell you what, the last time I had a “remedial” class, I found that they had more common sense and awareness than any of my other classes. Sure they had problems, but they operate on a much more knowing and aware level. Even the privileged are wholly underprivileged in many areas.

As I was trying to fall asleep last night I was thinking about the rhetoric of cyberspace and how it allows for “voices” to be heard, and then I thought about the teen angst sites, which are sometimes filled with angst for no apparent reason. There are SO many sites devoted to personal poetry. Now, first of all, poetry is not easy, I understand that. I have written poetry since I was in sixth grade and I would simply not put it out for everyone to see because it is very personal to me. It is my therapy and my emotional vomiting onto a page. I use it to purge, not for people to read. Only two people have ever read my poetry, and while the response has been good, it is no incentive for me to put it out there. Poetry has immense power, for both those who read it and those who write it. I have no problem with those who post their poetry, however, I do have a problem when the poetry is shit. When the words and the phrases are so mediocre and purport to be poetic simply by virtue of their rhyming or phraseology. Poetry is more than rhyming words and writing short phrases. It is both an investment of spirit and heart mixed with a highly acute sense of semantics. I know VERY few people who can move me and make me think with their writing (JeJe and Daniella being two of them). It is not necessarily something that can be learned, but honed. Poetry is as much about self expression as performance art. That being said, the abuse of cyberspace poetical rhetoric (which I call Poetrics, cause I can and all b) needs to end. How much of it is wanting to be one of the flock and how much of it is real? People need to think twice about taking pen to paper, and while I am not an expert to be dismissing someone;s need to express themselves on paper, I think that I do have a TAD bit more experience than the average Joe out there flashing their cyberstrokes. I am all for freedom of expression, but my God, try expressing something real and salient, not some asinine juvenile ideal.

Well, I administered my first exam since I started teaching four years ago. Never needed to give final exams in my Comp classes, but this film course required one. I was hell for me to have to sit through 3 hours of it, I can only imagine what it was like for the students. Then again, they have no room to complain. I now have two days to grade 50 final exams each consisting of 4 essays at the average length of 9 handwritten pages total. I am NOT looking forward to grading them. I don’t think I will ever be able to leave the house.

But, the consolation is that I can hang at Sara’s house and grade them while she goes to North Carolina for the week. Lucky her. I had thought of going with her, and I had thought of just going away for the week, but some stuff came up and I won’t be able to go much of anyplace, so I will be house/cat-sitting for her which suits me just fine. If all goes well, maybe I can shoot up to NY in August and see some shows and visit some friends. I need a break or something. My mind is just fried. I am also thoroughly fucking bored with no show to do, but hopefully that will change within the next couple of weeks.

Now, on a COMPLETELY different note, I wanted to share a lovely little phrase that I have revived from my lexicon on intelligent and cultural insults that no one would get: Duplicitous and Manipulative Sow. Allow me to break it down for you:

Duplicitous

Function: adjective

Date: 1928

Definition:contradictory doubleness of thought, speech, or action; especially : the belying of one’s true intentions by deceptive words or action

Manipulative

Function: transitive verb

Date: 1831

Definition:to change by artful or unfair means so as to serve one’s purpose

Sow

Function: noun

Date: before 12th century

Definition:an adult female swine; also : the adult female of various other animals (as a bear)

If I sit in front of my computer another minute I am going to go insane. I know I have things to do but I am not sure when to do them. I have a thesis I could be writing. I am getting my workout hours in. But I have watched more TV and cleaned my hard drive so many times that I am officially growing moss. I am desperately trying to find a way to make some money this summer since USF is screwing me over with no classes this summer. Plus, I have reached my teaching limit (you would think that they would not limit how many semesters you could teach when they are desperate for teachers) so I am trying to find other places to teach in, but that all depends on the green card situation. THIS SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKS!!!!!! I got an offer from HCC, I just need my damn papers soI can work off-campus.

In unrelated news, the Evil Demon Bitch Queen is up to her usual bullshit. It’s nice when 40-year-olds act like they are ten. Everything in its time. Karma always has a way of getting someone back for all the negative energy they put out. The bitch WILL go down.

Well, I had a swell time at my mom’s house. I did laundry, watched TV, read a little, thought about redecorating her house (I got bored and read a Home Living mag), and slept in peace and quiet for a LONG time. I was in heaven…..and now…I am back in hell….but soon…they WILL be gone. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!!!

School again tomm….yay! Actually, I am looking forward to it. I can;’ really stand one of my classes….they seem to think they know it all and I keep proving them wrong again and again.  My other class I love because they are directly in line with what the class, college, and life are. It’s amazing the difference in classes.

I have spent most of my evening counseling friends. It has been a busy evening.

On a good theatrical note. I am looking forward to Side Show. 

I just wish school was not in the way and I had my green card. Of course, I am having second thoughts about leaving school because I REALLY want a PhD and I REALLY want to work with some of the profs in that department. But I must keep telling myself that life is out there, and, most importantly, I have NOOOOOOOOOOO money!

Ok, I am reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally starting to hate Wednesdays. I have had long days before, but my God. Being at school from 8 am to 9 pm is hellish. What makes it worthwhile and bearable is hanging out with and talking ot many of the new TAs I have gotten to know. They are so freaking amazing. We spend most of the day cracking our asses up. Thank God for people with a sense of humor.

This week has been nothing short of exhausting. I generally like my students and they are very eager to learn. I have met most of the new TAs and they seem very nice and eager to be there. The senior TAs on our list are working up quite an argument storm. And I have decided that I can’t afford to move and that something evil and nasty needs to be done about Rotunda and her bitch boy. I even bought 30 decibel ear plugs….and they did not work. Needless to say, the management is violating their own policies. And do they care? Nooooooooooooooooooo.