the moldy mind of cuckoo chanel

today i begin a series on my professional life. i hope to include one entry per week for the next few weeks on my experiences (good, bad, and just plain ugly) in my current field of employment.

i teach. i mention this matter of factly in passing because it is simply a machiavellian means to an end for me currently. i am not like some of my former professors who feeling that teaching is their calling in life. kumaravdivelu does not make me orgasm when i say his name. in fact it really just makes me think of iron butterfly's "in-a-gadda-da-vida" simpson-style (perhaps due to the syllables?) ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGmkM4v9AaY

verbs are not my passion, nor are my students. this is not to say that i do not like or care about my students. i do. at least some of them...however, in the two years that i have taught, i have seen my fair share of freaks, geeks, and assholes. what really blows my mind is the cost of education these days and the lack of appreciation that the majority of students show with regard to this.

i teach at a nondescript school in the midwest. by the time my students have enrolled and paid for the course, books, and online materials...they have probably spent somewhere between $1500 and $3000 (depending upon whether they pay in-state or out-of-state tuition). not only does this sum seem extravagant to me because it is a lot of money for a family to have to spend on education, i don't see much of that coming back to me in my bi-weekly pay check. when i stare at a classroom full of twenty or so students, i can't help wondering where the approximate $45000 for my class has gone. yes, i have some "nice" teaching equipment, but it is not mine. i don't even get health insurance. oh, i could pay out of pocket for it, but what it would cost me to do so would eat up 2/3 of my monthly earnings. this leaves me feeling slightly bitter towards my alma mater (who also currently employs me). i know, i know, you don't bite the hand that feeds you. that's why this blog is anonymous!

furthermore, my wages don't compensate me for the time and effort that go into planning a successful lesson, nor do they make up for the way that i have been treated by students. i like to joke around a lot in class. i'm not that much older than the majority of my students, and i find that we all get along better in the long run if we can laugh and have a good time. this bit me in the ass last semester.

i had a student who was apparently very literal. my jokes and this student en faisaient deux as the french would say. cuckoo chanel would come into class everyday and make a 5-10 scene about selecting the appropriate desk...i tried to nip this in the bud early on in the semester, but to no avail. this picky choosy behavior appeared to drive others in the class as crazy as it did me. i tried hard to be patient, but it was really too much. the kicker is that this young woman (who very obviously had some issues of her own) would pick on another student in class who displayed what can only be categorized as "socially awkward behavior." perhaps i should have deduced from the dynamic that this particular class was a force with which to be reckoned...but i did not. i carried on in my usual manner joking about working for the man as well as responding to a student that their final exam time was actually during happy hour in most places. all of this landed me in my boss's office following a complaint by cuckoo chanel. i apologized (sincerely, i might add, too) for i had no idea that my comments had offended; i was forgiven by my boss, but not my student! the wrath of teacher evaluations came crashing down upon me a couple of weeks ago when i received scathing comments from cuckoo chanel. i was accused of "belittling my students" and getting "angry" with them as well as using "inappropriate language" and "talking too much about my personal life." what the f*%#? cuckoo chanel claimed that i made her life so miserable that she would have quit my class had she not desperately needed the credits. ouch. now i know i'm not perfect, but i did feel lambasted on this one. i tried not take it too personally, however. i taught the same class at another time last semester and received nothing but positive comments from those little gemstones! they saw me for who i really was. they were my saving grace. otherwise, cuckoo chanel could have led to my demise.

this situation alone would have been enough to push me over the edge last semester, but it was not my only pedagogical plight at nondescript university. next week i will submit another tale from the crypt that will be equally chilling and disturbing.