This was my first year as an adjunct. I didn’t like it much.  The other day I gave my notice that I didn’t want to be asked back for the Fall of 2008.

Last Fall I taught “College Algebra”, which is basically Algebra II that I assumed everyone had to have taken in high school.  Even I went that far.  It was almost 100% full of students who didn’t want to be there, thought it was too hard, didn’t have the experience, or never wanted to give it a chance.  It was a hard course to teach, and didn’t do much to brighten my attitude about teaching in general.  Maybe 15% of the students either dropped or failed, with a couple smart students here and there.  Every day was a battle for some kind of participation, which alone made it hard even showing up.  Since some of the students failed (many, in my opinion), I wasn’t sure that the school would even ask me back.  But they did for the following Spring, and this time they gave me calculus I.  I jumped on it, figuring that they’d see what a good job I could do with the calc guys, they’d give me to me again.

Fat fuckin chance of that happening.  I never felt that calculus was, in itself, particularly difficult.  I have yet to be convinced that there are people who are well versed in precalculus (solving equations, trig, algebra, etc) but can’t do calculus.  It doesn’t make sense to me.  Well, the semester was a disaster.  Over half of my students either dropped or failed.  The whole thing was jacked up from A to Z.  All but about four students had no idea how to do ANY of the stuff I mentioned above.  I would beg them for questions about anything, but it was rare that anyone spoke up.  Whole classes would go by with nobody saying anything.  I’d go through the lectures (having worked hard to prepare them) like I was the only one in the room.

A teacher can only take so much of that before he snaps.  It stopped being a job and started being just some place that I had to be two nights out of the week.  And if they didn’t know anything walking in the door, they sure as hell didn’t have any clue as to what I was putting in front of them.  And the answers they’d put on some of the tests……Jesus, man.  I swear, you’d think they didn’t even have an instructor in front of them.

As I try to make the best of it, my humor starts coming out of me.  Guess that’s my defense.  But their apathy seemed almost comical to me.  I felt like I was teaching on some fuckin reality show, being watched while the people in a hidden booth in the next room are getting a kick out of it all as they watch my hair go gray and my face grow long.  Someone went to the chair of the department about me.  Yep.  Someone went and complained about how my comments about the class were hurting her confidence and…well that’s the only direct bit that got back to me when he called me into his office to speak about it.  But god knows what else she said (I’m assuming it was a female).

I think it takes a lot of balls to go above someone’s head like that.  When I fucked up as an undergrad, I knew it was me.  And I did have some shitty teachers.  But I did make it known that half the class was failing.  Just to put things in perspective.  Actually, I was BLOWN THE FUCK AWAY by how many students still walked back into the classroom. after having taken the first exam and bombing.  The way I run my classes, it’s hard to get an A, but it’s also hard to fail.  My “curving method” is insane.  You have to consistently suck at everything to get an F.  But suck, they did.

I was also surprised when the chair said he’d hire me back, even after admonishing me about “the comments I make in class.”  The way he dealt with me, I think was fair.  I had the guy as an instructor before.  But still, I felt that with a class like that, the deck was stacked against me from the outset.  They could’ve had Mr. Teacher of the Millennium up in front of them and I don’t think it would’ve made a difference.  When the class just isn’t into it and tries taking that kind of attitude up against a course like calculus, they’re bound to end up in the shitter.

The current result is that they asked me back for the Fall to teach some “Calculus for Business” course or some shit.  I declined.  Coming home from teaching high school and then going right back out again two nights a week is just a fuckin hassle.  I’m not cut out for the round-peg-in-the-square-hole method of instruction.  If they offered me calc I in the fall, when all the incoming engineers are taking it, I think I’d be able to make something positive out of it.  And I’d love to do calc II in the Spring.  But I can’t expect to be able to tell the school what’s what about how they should schedule their adjuncts.  My letter of declination put that as delicately as possible.

I never thought I’d say this, but I had a better time teaching the Algebra II.  The course was way more suited to the type of student than was calc.  In any event, going to work at night during the Fall was a drag.  I haven’t gotten a letter of reply back yet from the guy about Spring work, so we’ll see.

And to think, the whole thing sounded so good on paper.