Friday, November 07, 2008
Missing Comrade
My first two years teaching at my community college were interesting, challenging, and engaging. While there, I have known a variety of adjuncts. Some of them were in graduate school with me, others graduated from the same program before or after I did, and there are a few who come from out of the area. All of them are decent people, but I cannot speak for their pedagogy. I wish I could, but honestly I have never seen them teach and I rarely hear my peers discuss pedagogy.
Over the past couple of months, I rarely run into any other adjuncts who teach composition. My regular pal in the adjunct office teaches political science to a room full of forty to sixty students. That places his methods on another planet, but we still kvetsch and share on things academic-related. Still, it would be nice to have someone with whom I can talk comp. Alas, it is not at work.
At my other work, a four year CSU, there are some chances to talk pedagogy during program meetings. This is invigorating, and it is what I love most about the meetings: I get to hear and speak about pedagogy with comp colleagues! What could be better? While this is a gilded experience, it highlights what is missing from my other workplace: an open, honest discussion about pedagogy. It is quite frustrating.
During my first year, there were several people with whom I could talk pedagogy. That was good, and several of them had been at the CC for a number of years teaching Basic Writing. It was a steep learning curve for me, and they shared a lot. I learned a lot. It was incredible.
My second year, fortunately, I was able to chat more with another composition comrade. Over the year, she drove to work and I hopped rides. We both were interested in adjunct activism, and we both loved to babble pedagogy. It was great: going to, and sometimes from, work was inevitably a pedagogical discussion. Is there a better way to prep for classes or figure out new teaching strategies or share ways to handle difficult students? Not in my experience.
I miss my comrade. Unfortunately, that level of openness, trust, and engaged discourse—our running dialogue—is hard to create. And when you are talking adjuncts in a politically and economically unstable region where the politics of the institution are not clear (and are they ever made transparent to contingent academic laborers?), it can be even more challenging. Thus, while I respect and hold my colleagues in regard, I am simply not able to be as open and free with them as I would like.
And I hate to be cramped by concern or worry. So it is easier to not bond, to not connect, and to focus on my future.
I miss my comrade. I had no idea how rare that kind of working relationship and collegiality was. I learned so much then, and I feel now like there is so much I am not learning, I am not seeing, simply because I cannot be relaxed and open to the degree I need to be.
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Comments:
I miss my comrade, too. She moved a couple hours south and is only teaching online now. We talk on the phone all the time and email, but I miss those in-office chats about what we’ve been implementing in our classes. I, too, have tried to discuss pedagogy with others in my office (teachers of math, Spanish, western civ) but haven’t found it to be as fulfilling as the conversations I had with my fellow comp teachers.
I’ve found my pedagogical fix, however, in the teaching and learning center at the community college I teach at as an adjunct. While I oftentimes find that adjuncts don’t participate in the learning opportunities made available through our center because they just don’t have time in their busy schedules (did you see the headline in The Chronicle today?), I have been so gratified in my interactions with full-time faculty in other disciplines. And the director of our teaching and learning center is phenomenal! She enables us to see the connections between disciplines and the application of techniques across those drastically different programs.
I’m so jealous that you are going to be starting your Ph.D. at TTU this winter. All that conversation with teachers of writing would really rejuvenate my passion!