Thank you! To Me! *Blush*Colleagues have been very supportive since my last post - telling me to hang on in there. Also, looking around at other jobs and having a reality check. For example, I could work in a meat packing plant, or on some other conveyor belt for minimum wage and then I really would have something to complain about.
I love teaching. No really, I do. I just want some job security more than anything but realistically, there's no job security in anything these days. My hourly rate is very good (okay - just forget the extra time spent - it's par for the course I guess), and my summers are free (well August at least) to spend with my kids...
My supervisor caught up with me today too. I apologised for (accidentally on purpose) missing the deadline for abstracts for the conference in July but she said, no problem, there's loads of time! So am going to do the conference paper after all despite the stage fright etc. Bugger. Bugger. Damn.
So, off to complete the marking (which is a joy when I get a good essay, or even one that's an improvement on a student's previous work). My mind is itching to get stuck into the novel but the marking has to be done first. Let it itch. Let it stew. By the time the marking's done I'll be raring to go.
On a lighter, note - I'd just like to share with you one of the sights I see on my way to work. Even in the rain I love it - miles of fields and farmland, and of course those gorgeous (semi) wild coloured horses. Makes everything worth while!
If there is anyone out there who wants to be a lecturer, might I suggest you have a read through the responses to Pity the students. But pity the lecturers more. It's an old post but still as current as ever. If you are seeking a profession that makes you feel valued, appreciated, and fiscally rewarded - forget it!
There are 2 posts advertised at my institution, and yet I am not qualified to apply for either of them because I haven't been publishing academically and am still in the process of gaining my PhD. Never mind the fact that I've been lecturing for 3 years now, and have been writing and leading modules from day one. Or that I have a PGCE, am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and am 2 years into my PhD.
I have been studying at university level for 8 years. I could have been a doctor by now - or a vet - earning a living. Yes - long hours, but long hours that are paid for, not to mention that feel worthwhile. Instead, I am still an hourly paid lecturer and likely to remain so, earning around £6,000 a year. Okay - so I have the summer off (except I don't really, because I have to teach summer schools to make my income up to that princely sum of six grand). I only teach a few hours a week... fine, but what about the hours I spend at home researching, improving my lessons, re-writing lectures? And there isn't any thanks either. The students leave at the end of the year with a small wave if you are lucky. When I left primary education after teacher training, I couldn't get out the door for hugs and little gifts. I'm not expecting hugs off my students in HE, or even gifts, but hey, would a card be too much to ask for?!
Hourly paid lecturers often teach a new course each year, having to teach it from scratch, write lectures, devise seminar activities etc., only to have it scrapped the following year or given to a full time member of staff. When I complain to my mentor I am told it is like an apprenticeship, that this is how it is. What other profession makes you work an apprenticeship after you've qualified? Makes you feel that you haven't qualified when you have? Keeps you from professional development and increase in pay each year? We are supposed to be given fractional posts now, but oh my goodness, would you believe that while I worked enough hours to qualify in years one and two, I haven't in my third year! Bloody great.
We don't find out what we're teaching until September either. So that's all summer hanging around to see if you've got any hours, and when they'll be so you can arrange child care. Then there's the feeling that you can't cope as you work every evening and all weekend, every weekend, just to stay on top, to get the marking done, the reading... whilst husband and children complain they never see you and the house degrades around your empty fridge.
I don't know where am I going anymore. All I have is a love of literature, language and writing, and the desire to share that passion with others, passing on what I know whenever I can, and hopefully inspiring people. It isn't enough obviously. I'm not going to be publishing loads of academic papers in the near future, not if I'm ever going to get this novel written. I don't want to present papers at conferences either. I just want to earn a living and be appreciated. I think I'm in the wrong profession.
From La Lengua comes the following; [English translation follows in the square brackets]
“Hoy, dando una clase de Lengua Castellana, ha venido a cuento hablar de la antigua Roma y de los acueductos. Y de cómo la ingeniería romana republicana e imperial les permitía realizar obras impresionantes hace 2.000 años. «Y no sólo hace 2.000 años -he continuado-, sino incluso hace más».
La mayoría de mis alumnos, de entre trece y quince años, me ha mirado con los ojos como platos. Finalmente, uno se ha atrevido a preguntar: «¿Hace más de 2.000 años?»”
[Today, giving a Castellano Language class, I began to tell the story of the Romans and their aqueducts. And how the engineers of the Roman Republic and Imperial States were able to realise such impressive works 2,000 years ago. “And not only 2,000 years ago,” I continued, “But even before that.”
The majority of my students, of between 13 and 15 years of age, looked at me with eyes like saucers. At last, one of them asked the question, “More than 2,000 years ago?”]
Even after explaining that the world is some 4,600 million years old, and that people have been around for a lot longer than the 2,007 years that follow the birth of Christ, his students still did not look convinced. What follows is a discussion of the education system in Spain, and asks how it is possible that those teenage children did not realise that the world has existed for more than 2,007 years. Furthermore, he goes on to say that it is the government’s fear of upsetting the various religions that has led to such a failure in the education of the young, and that is fostering the exact conditions that lead to fundamentalist behaviours. I had to respond, regardless of my paltry Spanish.
It is a truly terrifying thought that students anywhere could believe that the history of the world is only 2,007 years old, but sadly I can believe it. It is getting the same here in the UK. With government legislation constantly attacking educational practice, teaching is more and more about passing exams than developing critical thinking and fostering an inquiring mind. The government is more and more concerned about offending religions and cultures, continuing to narrow down the curriculum and impose yet more legislation/political correctness, to the point where stories such as The Three Little Pigs have been banned in some schools. (I guess that's another can of worms altogether, eh). There seems to be a growing fear of asking questions in case of offending someone or other. I'm not saying we shouldn't be aware of other cultures, and I am all in favour of promoting multi-culturalism, but it should not, must not, get in the way of allowing our children to do what they do best - ask and enquire about the world around them.
I trained as a primary teacher, have a teenage daughter, and teach at university level, so I’ve seen all age phases, and I am seeing a real failure in our education system. In England we have a National Curriculum that I fear is killing creativity in the classroom and murdering any sense of curiosity in our children due to over-prescribed subject areas and a constantly changing methodology. I cannot blame the teachers. They are struggling to meet targets, to have x number of exam passes etc or face losing their jobs/funding. I was so disappointed with the whole affair that I left primary and for a while, wanted to take my own children out of school!
But these problems, initiated in the early – and crucial - stages of education, are now filtering through to University level as well. I find a large proportion of my undergraduate students are unable to reason, or put forward an argument using evidence and research, let alone the decline in basic skills. Religion is another problem, as one student a few years ago took great offence when I was discussing the evolution of the vocal tract from apes to humans, saying they refused to be told they had evolved from a monkey. That aside, I find too many students, year on year, are increasingly narrow minded and lacking in basic written and verbal skills. Many of them have no concept of discovering answers for themselves and spend their first semester in shock at the fact that my job is to get them thinking, to give them avenues of enquiry to follow, to inspire them (one would hope!), and to turn them into independent learners, and not, as they all too often assume, to provide them with all the answers on a plate.
I don’t know what the answer is, but I’ve heard proposals that the voting age should be reduced to 16, which is a terrifying thought for a whole host of reasons, not least because if they can’t even manage to read two opposing statements, and understand that the statements are in opposition, how on earth are they going to be able to make decisions that should be based on an in depth critique of each political party’s ethics, beliefs and policies weighed up against their own infomed opinions.
I remember reading an article in The Times Educational Supplement some years ago, about it snowing outside a primary classroom window, and what a shame it was that the teachers were unable to take the children out into the yard, to get them exploring their world hands on, and inspiring them to ask questions. Instead the children remained inside being drilled for SATs tests, to meet government targets and attain Levels – and no doubt being kept safe from the inherent dangers of snow!
We, as teachers, need to battle against bureaucracy, and do what we do best; share our love of learning, foster the enquiring mind, share and explore the world around us, and venture into the past – even if that means before 2,007 years ago. How on earth can we expect the future generation to know where it is going if it doesn’t even know where it came from? I despair at times, I really do!
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