To Teach or Not to Teach?

That was the question. Whether it was nobler to suffer the daily humiliation of low pay, ignorant administrators, and slacker students or actually pay my own bills, without having to rely on friends and loved ones to bail my over-educated ass out of financial despair.

Some of you may remember that a couple of weeks ago, I got a call from my former department head at the Colledge, asking me to teach 2 sections of Spanish from 11AM-1PM on MWF this semester. As I'd been unemployed since June & under-employed since January, I initially said yes. It was one of those "when it rains, it pours" type situations, as I'd just gotten back my old job at Olivier's Restaurant in the French Quarter and I was gearing up for Tuesdays & Thursdays at the Med Skool to get started. After 2 months of being unemployed and with all my bills having "PAST DUE" stamped all over them, it seemed like a godsend.

Then I gave myself some time to really sit down and think about what this semester would look like:
Taking 2 buses every morning on MWF to get to Colledge (while carrying a change of clothes for my restaurant shift, not to mention whatever supplies I'd need for class) and then a 3rd bus to go downtown and work at the restaurant, and a 4th bus to go home after the restaurant closed at 10PM. TTH would be a bit more relaxed, as it only takes 1 bus to get back & forth from the Med Skool, and my days there generally start around 1PM. Saturday nights would be tied up at the restaurant, as that is a big $$$ night, so that would only leave me Sundays for laundry, errands, and personal entertainment. I found myself feeling exhausted just thinking about it all, and that was before I remembered how much out of class time it takes to grade tests and homework.

I read back over my blogs from this time last year, and remembered how unhappy I was then. How many days I woke up and just stared at the cracks in my ceiling, hoping the whole damn house would cave in just so I wouldn't have to drag myself across town, wondering if this was why I'd put in so much work to get a Master's Degree.

I tried to be more objective. I wrote a list of pros & cons about working at the Colledge. It looked something like this:

Pros:
Looks good on a résumé (but does it, really?)
Respectable (but is it, really?)

Cons:
Takes at least 1 month (2 pay cycles) to get the 1st paycheck
It took over 6 weeks for the Colledge to give me the password for my email.
Colledge doesn't take out state taxes (this year I owe LA $150 bc of that)
Taking 2 buses to get there.
Not having an office or any place to meet with students outside of class.
Unpaid meetings and professional development sessions.
No benefits (insurance, etc)
Based on a rumor I heard about adjunct teachers getting a raise, the pay works out to be $138 (pre-taxes) per class per week.

I stopped at the last item. I was all sad and angry and irate at how little my time was valued by the Colledge (and the educational system in a bigger sense, this stuff is quite typical for adjuncts) and the decision wasn't so agonizing. I average just about $138 per NIGHT at the restaurant. There haven't been many times in my life that I've been in a position to turn down work, but  I was glad to be able to Just Say No to being exploited by the Higher Education System.

As I reflected on it, working as an adjunct teacher  at Colledge just seems like a really stupid thing for me to do. I'm a lot of things, Gentle Readers, but stupid is not one of them.