A non-tenure-track instructor at a community college in Sacramento sends this along:
I took this shit job at this backwards school because my husband has a job with the government. He pretty much has to live here now, and it's because of that that I left a tenure-track job at a pretty college along the coast.
Anyway, nobody cares about "poor widdle me." But I came into my first semester with a good attitude nonetheless, at least until I met my students. These horrible 18 and 19 year old BABIES ruined every moment I spent on campus this semester. Without exception they are rude, disrespectful, and disengaged. It was not like this at my other college job.
I teach Political Science, and I know that I make it relevant and interesting for today's students (and I have the student evaluations to prove it), but these dolts sat there for 16 weeks with vacant looks and half-dead eyes. I tried everything, showed videos when appropriate, took them on a field trip (which is a whole other story), met with them individually, but nothing worked.
The overwhelming feeling I got was that the students just didn't want to be there. They didn't want to be in college. They didn't want to take classes. They were all just waiting for life to start. It got me thinking about what a professor of mine had said: "Not everyone is cut out for college." Yet, everyone seems to think they should go.
Well you know what? You don't have to, kiddies. After high school I waited tables and worked weekends at a movie theater. And after 2 years of being tired of being broke and disrespected, I went to a community college, then transferred to a university, and then grad school. I did all of that in 7 years, and I paid for it through scholarships, loans, and working at a bar. And when I went I was EAGER to go. I WANTED to go. I wasn't just doing what Mum and Dad wanted.
If all of the kids who hated college would get out, it would empty the buildings pretty quick. But what a great life would remain for those who stayed. People would be interested. Students would talk. Teachers could teach. And, once 18 year old kids were 20 or 21, and when they got their shit together, then they could make a decision that would work, and those that came back to college would want to be there. Wouldn't that be a good system!
Instead, I presume that I'll get the same kind group in Spring semester. Dolts. Stupidheads. Assholes. Disrespectful punks. I don't know if I can stand to go back to class again.
