My job depends on the satisfaction ratings of my students

My last post was my 100th. Yay me. Someone called me prolific, but blogging twice a week isn't exactly a world speed record. Still, I guess it's a sign of something positive that I'm still doing it, me the prodigal quitter.

I just spent three hours grading the tests that my Access class sweated through today. With every new test I graded, my hopes rose: maybe this one will be perfect, maybe this one will demonstrate intelligence and not just a hazy knowledge. Three times out of twelve times I was pleasantly surprised. We don't grade on a curve at the career college; everything is based on a point system. Three points for this skill, two points for that skill, amass enough points and you pass the test. Pile up enough points and you pass the class. Everyone can get an A if they want. It's nice to know at least three people will probably be getting As in my Access class. As long as they turn in all of the homework, of course.

This Access test covers basics: import tables from Excel, revise the design, add some data, create a new table with a lookup field, set some relationships, create some queries with various criteria, print some database documenters. I'm no Access wizard, I can assure you. This is super basic stuff. And mostly, I think they are getting it. No one scored less than 84. I think it is a testament to my thorough test reviews. What the hell. I'm all about teaching to the test. This isn't academia, for god's sake. If you want them to learn job skills, teach 'em and test 'em. Then shove 'em out the door. Yeee-hawwwww, get along little dogie!

I arrived early today after the holiday weekend at the request of one Access student who wanted some extra help. I was fully expecting her not to show, but she did. I'm proud to say I didn't feel one twinge of regret, even though I could have gotten a lot of mileage out of some righteous indignation: She didn't show! Why I oughta—But she did, and I was glad to work through the test review with her, and to see her earn a 97% on the test. Chalk one up for me.

After the Access test, which took the full two hours, I had the Excel class. This is a whole other critter. New students are often signed up for Excel, along with Word and possibly Windows in their first term. This is the sink-or-swim method of college learning. Some of these folks have very little computer experience. Selecting a range of cells is a major accomplishment. Today we were scheduled to go through the review for the next test, which is set for Thursday. Sadly (for them), a good three-fourths of the class haven't come close to finishing the lessons they need to in order to be prepared for the test. We're beyond basic formulas now, getting into mixed and absolute cell references and nested functions. Stress levels were on the rise. One student keeps threatening to bring his shotgun. For the computer he hates so much, I presume.

So, it was a sad day for all, including me, because today was the day the administration wanted to conduct course/teacher evaluations.

When the academic coordinator came to the room, all perky and smiling, my heart rate started to rise. Not because my evaluations from this class are going to totally suck hind tit, but because I knew I would be losing 20 minutes of review time while I twiddled my thumbs in the hallway, waiting for them to finish the evaluations. In the Access class I was able to postpone the evaluation to Thursday due to today's test. (And now the ethical question is do I give them their tests back before or after they take the survey? Don't worry. I always give them their tests back first. Some terms I'm toast as far as my evaluations go. So be it.)

The career college has used a variety of methods to evaluate its instructors and courses. When I first started working for the college in 2003, they used a pencil and paper system. I was dumbfounded when I saw a copy. You've heard of a double-barrelled question, in which a question has two parts that can be answered differently, making it very difficult for the respondent to discern which part of the question to answer? Well, in this survey, questions were triple-barrelled. For example, indicate the extent to which you agree with the following statement on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 means disagree strongly and 5 means agree strongly: My instructor was entertaining, fair, and super nice.

“How can you possibly get actionable data from these questions?” I remember asking whatever poor sould was the academic coordinator. She gave me a perplexed look. I had to laugh. What else could I do?

A few years later, someone asked me to write a questionnaire for them, and I did, but like so many of my priceless and essential suggestions, nothing ever came of it. After a few more years, probably right after the next accreditation site visit, we switched to an electronic system. The questions, however, remained the same. I pointed out the ongoing problem. “How can I know what to work on improving, if each question I'm being rated on has three distinct and conflicting behaviors?” No one had an answer, even when I pointed out that a teacher's job performance rating was based on these evaluations. In fact, faculty were losing their jobs over these evaluations. (Yes, I'm a potstirrer, I'll admit it. The chronic malcontent strikes again.)

A few terms ago, someone introduced a Survey Monkey survey, which we are still using. I think the questions are more reasonable now, last time I checked. I can't be positive, because I can't go very far in the survey without entering data. I'm far too respectful of the research process to attempt to alter the results by entering fake data, so I just back out quietly and hope for the best. Apparently in recent terms many students have been choosing to avoid participating in the evaluation process. Because these surveys are required for the college to maintain its accreditation, now the administration is sending the academic coordinators at each site to the labs to proctor the survey. Teachers must exit, stage right.

And that is how I ended up in the hallway, fuming and twiddling, and thinking of the traffic I would encounter should I stay a bit late to demonstrate nested functions for the few diehards who wanted to stay after class. God bless 'em. I stayed and showed the amazing nested function process to a few folks, who were properly grateful. I had the impression they gave me good reviews. I suspect the students that left early without looking at me probably trashed me. I can imagine the comments. Carol is a snarky snippy teacher. Carol ignores me and spends all her time with the slow students. Carol talks too much. Carol doesn't know how to teach. Carol doesn't grade fairly. And more, in lousy grammar, sprinkled liberally with misspelled words.

Ho hum. (Have I mentioned I'm burned out on teaching?) Actually, I've gained a tremendous amount of patience through being a teacher. I am continually reminded that I cannot poke or prod someone into learning faster than he is capable of learning. I cannot convince someone of the value of learning the material unless she is willing to listen with an open mind. Being snarky or snippy certainly doesn't endear me to anyone, nor does it enhance the learning process. I've learned. I'm still working on applying what I've learned, but then, aren't we all?

Students and teachers: a match made for the hellish handbasket

Mid-way through the week, feeling hammered by life, but as tired as I am, I am hopeful that my concept paper is finally emerging from the murky depths of academic... I want to say mediocrity, but that is too much to claim at this point. Yes, this is the same old concept paper, the one that I can't wax nostalgic about because it never goes away. I am struggling with the Research Design chapter, getting bogged down in justifying my choice of a phenomenological design, (I'm finally beginning to be able to type phenomenology without errors), and looking for examples of studies that use a similar design, so I can point to them (academically speaking, I think we call it citing), and say (silently) See? See? They did it, and they got published. You, you, mentorish chairperson, you.

I'm not resentful. I'm working on taking action and detaching from the outcome. After grading a stack of Access and Excel papers after dinner, and editing a stack of resumes from wannabe medical assistants, I finally spent some time writing. Thinking, writing, looking stuff up, thinking, writing some more. It's hard, but it's fun. I wish I had more time to work on this concept paper, but I know, I know, be careful what you wish for, because it might just fall on your head. I don't want to suddenly find I have lots of time and no job. I am grateful I'm employed, and I hope it lasts until I'm ready to move on to something else. In the meantime, I grit my pearlies, grade papers, edit resumes, and steal time from eating, sleeping, novel-reading, and TV-watching time to work on my own scholarly endeavor. It does no good to be resentful. Resentment just makes it harder to think.

Today a student withdrew from my class because his transfer credits came through proving he had already taken Excel. He was there one minute, gone the next, no good-bye. So long, thanks for all the fish, I could see it in his face. I wish all my students were as skilled and diligent as he was. In the same Excel class today, the tanning addict went out to answer her cell phone, came back a half hour later weeping and said she had to leave for an emergency at home. What could I say? No, you have five absences and if you leave now, you are toast? No, you took the first test late, you come to class late, you don't do your work, you haven't turned in a single assignment, and you spend your time surfing the Internet to see who has stolen your identity? It doesn't matter. She's so far behind, it is highly unlikely at this point that she will catch up.

Sometimes I just want to shake them. What are they thinking, letting their education slip away? I want to grab their upper arms where it really hurts and just shake them until their teeth get loose and fall out onto the floor. Not because I want to hurt them, but because I want to shake some sense into them. (Hmmmm. I guess it won't work, but it might help relieve some of my stress.) But then I remember my own sordid past (I try so hard to forget). I remember that I quit three different schools before I finally earned my Bachelor's degree. Oh yeah. Not everyone makes it on the first go-round. And it's not my job to make them make it. I don't have the power. All the tooth-rattling in the world won't make someone be ready when they aren't.

I'm sure my parents and a few of my teachers wanted to shake my teeth loose a few times. I'll try to be grateful for the wonderful students that do their work on time, do their best to learn, take their learning seriously, show up to class everyday... even the ones that slip away because their transfer credits give them a free pass. And I'll try to be more patient and compassionate for the wackjobs and knuckleheads that seem to have such a hard time being in the world. After all, I used to be one of them.

When it is time to burst out of the bubble

This evening as the sun went down in between thick puffy clouds, I walked for an hour on the trails winding around the extinct volcano, half hoping for cataclysmic obliteration, but the caldera was silent, as usual, except for the shouts of the guys playing basketball. The air was cold for August, straight off the ocean 80 miles away. Not fall air, but ocean air. I was never alone for long: the trails were well populated with walkers and their dogs. I listened to music on my mp3 player—David Bowie, SuperTramp, Fleetwood Mac, U2—and planned how I would handle the moment when someone accosts me from behind. No one did, but it's good to be ready.

Walking in the park is a good time to review the week and ponder the glacial pace of my progress. When I say progress, I guess I'm referring to forward movement along the myriad frontlines of my life: academic, social, spiritual, physical, philosophical... as usual, it seems like I'm stuck, wallowing in the messy bog again, crying to heaven. Yesterday I surfed homes for sale in Palm Desert, Palm Springs, and Desert Hot Springs, thinking I could buy some cardboard house out in a meth-infested desert town for a mortgage payment half of what I currently pay in rent. Today, when I close my eyes, I see palm trees, blue sky, and lawns of gravel.

This week one of my professional development students voiced something that got a collective sigh from the entire class. This student, I'll call her Tiralina, is a tall, slender, blonde stick of energy with braces and a habit of speaking whatever is on her mind. She's not belligerent; she just seems to have few boundaries when it comes to expressing herself. She's honest and direct, and I love her for it.

“I'm excited to finish school,” she said. “But I'm also scared!”

“Yeah, what's that all about, do you think?” I asked.

The professional development class is the one where students prepare their resumes and cover letters and practice their interviewing skills in preparation for graduation. Most of these students are in the Medical Assisting diploma program, a nine-month learning blitz, and in another month they will be scouring the city for an externship position to complete their education. 

“We have to leave the school bubble,” said Tiralina, “and I don't want to, but I do. But I don't.”

“Does anyone else feel that way?” I asked.

Everyone nodded and sighed. She had struck a collective nerve. As they shared their fear and excitement, I couldn't help wondering if I was also in the same boat: stuck in the school bubble, afraid to launch myself to the next level.

Today at work in Wilsonville, I sat in the restroom, psyching myself up for my four-hour Access and Excel teaching gig by stretching my face into a fake grin and saying over and over silently, “Everything is grrrreeaaattt!” I was aiming for a Tony the Tiger impression, failing, but not totally miserably, because they say even if you fake a smile, it produces endorphins. It worked, I think, for most of the four hours, until the point when the insane student who is addicted to tanning asked me to help her figure out how people on the Internet were tracking her in order to steal her identity.

What I wanted to say was, you knucklehead, you are such a loser, anyone who wants your identity would be doing you a huge favor. Imagine, you could start over and get it right this time! Of course, I didn't say that. I politely steered her toward the IT department. At that point it was time to go, and the more minutes tick by, the thicker the traffic going home, so I was itching to exit. I bailed with a “Good luck!” tossed over my shoulder. I always leave on Thursday afternoon with a feeling of profound relief, like I've just been released from prison. I also despair, because I know in a few days, I'll have to go back and do it all again.

So I walked the park trails and pondered my progress, and oddly enough, after I walked, I didn't feel quite so morose. Even though the sun sets sooner now, even though the night air is cold and it's time to pull out the flannel sheets, even though the stores are full of back-to-school and the dreaded holiday season is rushing at me, it's still better than lying dead in some alley in Aleppo. Is this all I have to complain about, my little existential angst tantrum? Really? Hey, you want my identity? It's a fixer-upper in a bad neighborhood, but it could be worse.

The few, the proud, the over-educated

Good news from my chairperson. She liked my Chapter 1. A few minor changes, and I'm good to move on to Chapter 2, the Literature Review. I'd like to say I'm hopeful and heartened by her response, but honestly, I'm so tired of this, all I can do is put my head down and pray for the stamina to keep slogging forward. It seems like every other minute I'm mimicking the kid on the sock commercial—you know, the one where the dad says, “We can't get socks that fit, and we're sick of it!” and the little kid echoes, “Sick of it!” while his dad is dunking his feet in a bucket of latex. I walk around muttering, “Sick of it!” at odd moments when I hope no one is listening.

It's embarrassing to admit I'm sick of something like the privilege of working toward a Ph.D. It's what my friend would call a luxury problem. Something like 3% of the population has earned a doctorate, and if I just keep plugging away at it, I will probably earn one of my own. The few, the proud, the over-educated and possibly soon-to-be unemployed—and quite possibly unemployable. How's that for special? A Bachelors degree is a leg up over a high school diploma, I think there is widespread agreement for that position. One could argue the payoff drops from there, depending on what your Masters degree is in, and unless your doctorate is in Computer or Biological Sciences, I have doubts that the benefits of a doctoral degree outweigh the costs.

The best I can say is that I will have no student loan debt if and when I finish. Yay. At least I won't have any bills when I'm living under the Burnside Bridge. Just kidding....I'll probably still have a few bills, just not from the student loan companies.

We are half way through the 10-week term at the career college. For the past couple weeks, many students have been absent. Some are on vacation. A few have family obligations. A couple are sick, so I've been told. The rest are AWOL, apparently. This sometimes happens in the computer classes after the first test. Some students get demoralized from the amount of work. Or they get their student loan stipend and go on a bender. Or they get charged with murder and end up in jail. You know, just the challenges of life. Not everyone makes it through college, even our college. Hard to believe, I know, but even we have standards, even this low on the higher education food chain.

I don't mind that students disappear. I consider it a strange kind of success. It's a weaning of sorts. Only the serious students survive, the rest fall away, scatter like cottonwood fluff on the breeze. The ones that are left are bright, hungry, and determined. No matter what idiotic thing I say, they will succeed. They don't need me at all, except perhaps as a cheerleader or an occasional coach. They have learned how to learn, and nothing, not even a lousy podunck career college like ours can hold them back.

The online university I pay all my discretionary income to is coming up for reaccreditation in a couple months. I've been reading the discussion folders with some alarm. Students are fuming over recent changes the school has implemented to improve standards. Some of the changes haven't gone as smoothly as one would hope, but it's highly unlikely anyone at the school is maliciously trying to sabotage students' success. From some of the posts, one would think some of my fellow students are being singled out for harassment and persecution. One irate soul is urging us all to send our complaints to the Higher Learning Commission, the agency that accredits the university. Others are cautioning against precipitous action, worried that our accreditation is at risk. It's true that if the HLC decides not to re-accredit the university, the degree I am struggling to earn becomes worthless. But that is unlikely to happen. I hope.

I'm trying to stay out of the wreckage of the future.

Where burned out teachers go

As the mercury leaps toward the century mark outside, I hunker in the Love Shack with all my west-facing windows barricaded against the approaching sun, hoping that by the time the temperature reaches 90° indoors, it will have dropped to 85° outside, and I can throw open the windows and doors, turn on all the fans, and tough it out with wet washcloths on my head. We can hope.

I ran my errands early. Bank, gas station, car wash, grocery store. Yes, I actually washed the Dustmobile, the first time in well over a year. Hey, I park on a gravel road. In the summer, it's dusty, in the winter, it's muddy. Why waste water washing it, when it looks so cool, sort of like an Army test for a stealth urban warfare vehicle, cloaked in its thick patina of grime? Believe me, there's nothing more invisible than a dirty, dusty old black Ford Focus.

So, yay me, I ran my errands. I've caught up on my Access and Excel grading, posted the updates in engrade, so the students who check their grades every five minutes don't have to wait another moment to know they are failing my class. Now what?

Yesterday I posted my second update on my final dissertation course. I should say, what would have been my final dissertation course, had I been able to keep to the schedule. With the update I submitted Chapter 1, which consists of the Introduction, the Problem Statement, and the Purpose Statement. I threw in the key terms and an outline of the Literature Review, just to give my chairperson the impression that I'm not a slacker. She's not a slacker either, apparently. I just checked my online university course room, and she's already given me credit for the update, along with a cheery note: I'll review your Chapter 1 and give you my comments soon! She lives somewhere in Florida. It's probably a lovely Friday afternoon in the Sunshine State (formerly the Land of Good Living, if Wikipedia can be believed). I can't blame her if she wants to get a jump on the weekend.

So, here I am. I could read Chapter 6 in the mind-numbingly boring Business Ethics book for Monday morning. My three students, all female accounting majors, were assigned to team-teach Chapter 5, which they presented on Wednesday. The topic was Ethics and the Environment. What could be more interesting, right? What I got was anything but team, and very little teach. (I wasn't expecting all that much; after all, I'm a professional, don't try this at home). As I feared, one by one they stood shakily at the lectern and sped through the notes they had gleaned from the book. They provided no examples or original commentary, no visual aids, not even a few expressive hand gestures, not even when Al Gore's personal carbon footprint was briefly mentioned. Oh, the wasted opportunities.

I couldn't help myself. After a few seconds to let their heart rates settle, I leaped up.

“Say, did you hear that Bill Gates is sponsoring a challenge to design a better toilet?”

They eyed me skeptically.

“It's true! A toilet show! In Seattle, right now!” Clearly I was ready to organize a car pool.

Their faces told me how monumentally uninterested they were. Tammi at least giggled, bless her heart, but then she giggles at everything. Renata and Kayley just rolled their eyes.

I love the idea of toilets that help people and the planet, (don't you?) but my intention was to engage them in the topic of environmental ethics. There is so much to be righteously angry about, where does one begin? Toilets is as good a place as any. But I fear once again I failed as a teacher. My expectations were unclear; they resorted to the traditional fallback position that all teachers use: when you don't have time to prepare something innovative, lecture. Wouldn't you think after sitting through umpteen boring lectures that these students would search for another teaching method? A skit, maybe? A dance? Oh wait, these are accounting students. Nuts, even a pop quiz would have been more interesting than watching them stumble over their notes, for crimony's sake. Dead letters filled with sawdust.

I was so happy when I got this teaching job, nine long years ago. After so many tedious years of stultifying admin work, finally a vocation I was well suited for, something that let me be self-expressive, creative, and useful. At the time I had no idea that for-profit vocational education wasn't even on the bottom rung of the higher education ladder, or that the institution that hired me was (a) barely better than a diploma mill, and (b) desperate for a warm body because the previous warm body had bailed two days before the term. No, I was utterly ecstatic to have a job in a place where I thought I could fit and be of service. My glasses were rosy, and the world looked bright. And in the beginning, I was a creative teacher.

Now, nine long years later, my glasses are tarnished, bent, and scratched. I know a few things now that I didn't know then, and it has definitely taken the shine off the world of education for me. I try to balance the good and the bad, to keep from going crazy. This for-profit vocational college is not the monster that traditional education fears, but neither is it a substitute for an academic education. The life of a full-timer at a for-profit vocational institution has its benefits (no research requirements), but its drawbacks (low pay, low prestige, no tenure, no support from management) are hard to ignore. The caliber of student at the for-profit college is not generally what one might find at a traditional academic institution, but in our defense, we serve a different target market, and seeking job skills in order to find a good job is arguably just as worthy a goal as working toward a degree in philosophy, or art, or English. Some would say possibly better.

What is the purpose of higher education? Is it to get a well-paying job? Is it to become a good citizen? Can we teach both, I wonder? What makes a great teacher? One who lectures in front of the room? Or one who facilitates, guides, coaches, coaxes, and challenges? Do we even need teachers anymore, in this world of Web 2.0? When MIT and Harvard are offering free online courses to people around the world, what need do we have for brick and mortar schools? When you can learn how to do anything—virtually anything!—from a youtube video?

I don't care anymore about being a teacher. That's a good thing, because teaching at the career college has ruined my teaching career. But I'm stuck there until I finish this Ph.D. I went down the dissertation path like Little Mary Sunshine skipping merrily toward a cliff. I leaped, eyes shut. I pancaked a long time ago, but I prefer to pretend I am still falling.

The dog days of discontent

It was a difficult week at the career college. Difficult for my Access and Excel students, who on Tuesday soldiered through their first test. Difficult for me, struggling to grade their tests Tuesday night and Wednesday afternoon, in time to return the tests the next day. A few things had to get cut from my schedule. This blog on Tuesday. My mid-day siesta on Wednesday. Oh, the sacrifices we must make to provide good customer service for our students.

Somewhere in the neighborhood of the Love Shack, not too far away, not far away enough, is a sad and lonely dog. I've never seen this dog. I don't know where it lives. But I can hear this dog weeping and moaning for long hours on end, its howls echoing above the houses on the gravel road, endless, piteous weeping and moaning. On Tuesday, the dog was speaking for me. I wanted to weep and moan, raise my voice to the sky, just let loose with a howl. Life sucks, owwwwwwwwwwooooooooooo.

Sometimes the dog's howling sounds wrenchingly heartfelt, full of genuine angst, like a coyote crying to the moon, and other times the howling resembles the fake screaming of an angry child: woe is me, everyone is so mean to me, boo hoo hoo. Either way, I frequently vow I am going to find that dog, record its howling, and play it back for its owner at top volume in the middle of the night.

It's hot. Maybe the dog is howling because it can't get to its blistering hot metal bowl of water. Maybe it can see its owners through the patio door, kicked back in their Lazy-boys in air-conditioned luxury. I have no idea, I'm just making this all up. But god's truth, I'd like to throttle those owners for creating the conditions that motivate that dog to continuously weep and moan. Sort of like I'd like to throttle the owners of the career college for creating the conditions for students to fail at Access and Excel.

Well, I guess that isn't really fair. There's really not much the two owners do these days except play golf, as far as I have heard. They sneak up to the third floor via the elevator on Board meeting days, to avoid mixing with us riff-raff, I presume. We rarely see our college president, who seems perennially on trips to east coast Ivy League colleges with his 12-year-old son. Is it fair of me to blame them, the invisible Board, for staying stuck in 20th century technology, when the means to help students succeed at learning computer programs exist? I'm talking about using computer simulation software to teach computer applications courses. Nothing radical, nothing new. Other schools do it, even employment agencies use simulation software to teach the basics of Microsoft Office.

My Excel class is not large, only fifteen students, but the capabilities of the students run the gamut from how do I select a range of cells again? Press the what button on the what? to I am a power user and I could teach this class, stupid. Lecturing seems like a Jurassic approach in a computer class where everyone is moving at different speeds. But unfortunately, they are all stuck working through the lessons and exercises in the error-ridden, out-dated textbooks. If they are careful readers, they can successfully complete the lessons, but even the most careful of students can navigate an exercise with 20 complicated steps and reach the end with no conception of what they were supposed to learn. I see it happen time and again. They perform the steps, but fail to learn. How is that helping them prepare for the workplace? And don't get me started on what happens to ESL and learning-disabled students.

We use a software tool called Lanschool, which allows teachers to commandeer computers in the classroom to demonstrate skills students need to know and to review for tests, on the premise that showing them how to perform a task is just slightly more effective than simply telling them how to do it. The best I can manage is to have them work along with me on their computer while watching me demonstrate the skill on the computer monitor next to them. Ideally, though, the best way for them to learn the material would be for them to teach it, but it's a rare student in the computer classes who is willing to bravely demonstrate for his or her peers the steps to, say, create an input mask in an Access table, or insert a function in Excel that returns the current date. Muttering ensues. Teaching, you call this teaching? Why are we doing the teacher's job? Muttering, followed by mutiny, followed by unemployment.

My unvoiced suggestion is for the college to purchase software that lets students learn in a simulated computer environment, where they move through the lessons at their own paces, receiving instant feedback from the software, moving on when the system thinks they are ready. Without having to read the out-dated, step-by-step workbooks. But then, who needs a teacher? Indeed.

I think my problem is I just want to shake things up. I'm dissatisfied with the pace at which my own studies are progressing, and I'm feeling trapped in what I perceive to be an ineffective work environment. The chronic malcontent resorts to pot-stirring, just for the hell of it, just to avoid really having to feel the uncomfortable feelings that arise when one realizes there are no easy solutions. That people learn in all kinds of ways, and I have no control over them or their learning process. That the owners of businesses can do whatever they want, and that includes doing nothing. That dogs will continue to howl, because that is what dogs do.

Self-deception is how I survive a life of cognitive dissonance

John Perry and Ken Taylor, my favorite living radio philosophers, are dissecting the problem of self-deception on Philosophy Talk. Why do we self-deceive? Sorry, I shouldn't lump you in with the self-deluded. You probably are totally self-honest, a paragon of virtue and integrity, off-the-charts emotional intelligence, yada yada. Not me. My normal state is self-delusion, but sadly for me, I'm not lacking in self-awareness. I can tell you why I self-deceive. Because the cognitive dissonance of my life is too painful to face.

For example, I say I care about the environment. I recycle, I buy green products, but I drive a vehicle with an internal combustion engine that spews pollutants and greenhouse gases into the air that other people must breathe.

I don't download pirated movies or steal music, but get out of my way when I'm driving to Wilsonville on the I-205 freeway. The speed limit is 65, but that's for pokey trucks. The best my tired old Focus can do is about 73 mph, but I'd be airborne like all the SUVs if I could be, no matter what the speed limit is.

Here's another example. I stand in front of a roomful of aspiring medical assistants, telling them to always move in the direction of their dreams, that they can have that perfect job if they just don't give up, all they need is the resume du jour, a few key words, a good answer to “Tell me about yourself,” and a life of bliss will be theirs, guaranteed. Just follow these simple steps. Bla bla bla. When I really get going, my voice will actually quiver with passion, as if I truly believe what I am saying. They stare at me raptly, nodding, desperately wanting to believe that what I claim is true, that somehow they will all find the job of their dreams. The odds are that only a couple of those MAs will find a job they tolerate, much less one they like. Six months after graduation, the rest will be working at KMart, Wal-Mart, and Food-Mart, bagging crap for cranky customers and muttering bitterly about how I deceived them.

The antidote to self-deception is self-reflection, suggests John and Ken's guest philosopher, Neil Van Leeuwen. Ken isn't buying it. He is ripping Neil's argument to shreds. Mr. Van Leeuwen stands firm, a charming optimist. Ken says morosely that self-deception won't make us happy. I'm with you, Ken. No argument from me, the chronic malcontent. The best I can say is that self-deception helps me maintain the illusion that life is worth living. It does no good to remind me that I should be counting my blessings: I have a job, I have a car, I have a life. Lucky me. Being alive is difficult when one is a self-obsessed malcontent. Don't misunderstand me, I don't want to be dead quite yet, but so far, I haven't figured out how to really live. Not without a liberal dose of self-deception.

I could never be friends with someone who likes country music

Today I woke up to clouds, and the rest of the day just went to hell from there. George, my landshark, arrived at about nine to continue his work (pounding, sawing, scraping) in the two bathrooms on either side of my burrow. He's retiled the shower/tub stall with shiny white tiles. I know this because I saw an example of his work when I went to tell him my bathroom sink was filling rapidly with milky water. Alarmed, I hotfooted it next door and found him in the bathroom, covered with white tile plaster and grout. It was pretty clear to me that George was washing up in the bathroom sink.

“George, my sink is filling with water. White water.”

“Oh? This sink is draining.”

Duh, dude. It's draining into my sink! I didn't say it. After some hemming and jawing, he said he'd take a look at it—tomorrow. He is apparently in grouting mode, not plumbing mode. I politely admired his tile work for a moment. Then I stomped back to my nest, and in a few moments, the air began to vibrate: He'd cranked his boombox up to some country station. Twang! I would have pegged him for a classic rock guy. Guess we'll never be friends, George and I. Too bad. A friend with plumbing skills can sure come in handy.

Seeking asylum, I went out to the front garden to pull weeds and plant the stringy rosemary my mother had painstakingly rooted herself over a period of several long months. George's full-size pickup truck made a nice barrier between me and the street traffic, but the cafe across the way was going full-swing. The acoustics on this corner are uncannily acute. I can hear everything. How do you like the potatoes? Oh, really, I read that, too! Jeremy, keep your hands to yourself! I had to look up from my labors several times to make sure the diners weren't headed right for me, coming to tell me what to do with last year's collard greens, now four feet high and gone to seed. Add in the frequent 40-foot buses swinging wide around the corner, the occasional pedestrian with baby in stroller, and George's crazy taste in music, and you've got a recipe for a lively morning at the Love Shack.

I heard a familiar sound: the Adventist Hospital laundry truck coming up Belmont, making its way over the hill, carrying fresh linen to Adventist. I have heard this truck for years. I recognize the engine whine and clinking of chains as it trundles around the corner. I never knew it carried laundered linens to Adventist until I found out one of my students works for Adventist. He once mentioned he drives the laundry truck. Today I was curious to see if it was him, but I was afraid to look. I didn't want him to see me wearing grimy grubbies, working in a dilapidated garden, the real me. At that moment a bus came along in the opposite direction; I knew that would occupy the Adventist driver's attention, so I looked right at the driver. Sure enough, it was my student, expertly negotiating the truck past the bus, the corner, the parked cars, and the pedestrians. For a moment I felt proud, like I had something to do with his skill. I smiled. Then I laughed, as it occurred to me that I will be a dusty foot-note to the great things this twenty-year-old kid is going to do with his life. Maybe my words of praise will live on in a letter of recommendation. 


I'm supposed to be working on my concept paper. (Yes, still.) But I also have homework for work. Now that I'm teaching at two campuses, I have to bring work home. Two heavy bags of books and files, one for each aching shoulder. It's like being an adjunct all over again. The homeless, worthless adjunct instructor. There's just too much to do. So what do I do? I turn to this blog to vent to the five people who regularly tune in. And to the folks who stray here by accident, and have actually read this far—(wow, you must have a lot of time on your hands), welcome to the hellish hand-basket.


Now a slippery whiny sound is coming from the bathroom next door. I am guessing George is rubbing his shiny new tiles clean. It sounds like a whimpering dog. My cat is looking askance at me, like, when did we get a dog? I shrug my shoulders at him: dunno. 

And now, to my profound relief, making a late appearance: the sun, or something like it. Cue applause.

Did the utilitarian philosophy just dive bomb my head?

You can tell it's summer because there are flies everywhere. Or maybe it's my lousy housekeeping. A fly is buzzing my head, and my cat is just lying on the floor, ignoring it. I can only hope Eddie (my cat, not the fly, I don't usually name flies), is conserving his energy for a strategic leap. Yep, sure enough, there he goes. Bam! But he missed, I think, or maybe there's more than one fly. A fly remains, lazily circling the room, just out of reach, like a hawk riding the updrafts.

Speaking of flies, no, speaking of hawks... No, speaking of lazily circling a room, this week we started a new term at the career college. I met some new students at two campuses. Both days I talked way too much. That's normal for a new start. What is not normal is to meet a class, and then find out I will be swapping classes with another instructor for the rest of the term.

An instructor I will call Amy also makes the trek to Wilsonville every other day. We are nomads, no place to sit, no computer to call our own. You know, like adjuncts. The main difference between us is Amy is losing her job at the end of the term, and I (as far as I know right now) am not. I won't say Amy has lost the will to live, that would be overly dramatic, but she seems to have evolved past the “Let me help you” stage of teaching into the “I don't give a rat's ass, figure it out yourself” stage. I know she's a good teacher. I think she no longer cares. (And who could blame her.)

Now that I've denigrated her, in her defense I should say Amy was assigned to teach a subject she has no business teaching: Excel. She isn't a computer person. She's muddled through keyboarding, and fumbled through PowerPoint, but it was clear today she met her match. I was sitting with my seven-person College & Career Success class, when suddenly Amy appeared at the door, looking pale and desperate.

“What's wrong?” I asked.

“Could you come up to the lab when you have a minute?”

Five minutes later I dismissed my class and went up to the computer lab on the second floor. I eased in through the door and looked around. She had a class of maybe 15 students, half of them out of their seats, milling around the printer. The room was bustling with activity. Amy was helping an older woman who looked confused. Amy looked up as I came in.

“Oh, we figured it out.”

I watched for a couple minutes. Amy came over to me, and we whispered together. She told me she shouldn't be teaching Excel, because she didn't know what she was doing. I mentioned what I was teaching: College & Career Success and PowerPoint, two classes she has taught before. Her eyes lit up. I could tell she would be thrilled to take those two classes, if only I would take the Excel class off her hands.

Part of me was like, yes! I get to be a hero, and then my next thought was, Oh no, I think there are some people in this class who have never used Excel before. Possibly they haven't even used a computer before.The smell of fear was in the air. That could be a a lot of work. On the other hand, I would be down to five preps instead of six, and that would be less work.

And I could get rid of the talking class. The CCS class. That was the clincher for me. Much as I love helping new students get off on the right foot, I really dislike being the “leader” of a class. I can handle “guide,” “facilitator,” or “coach,” but too much talking wears me down to a nub. What can I say. I'm an introvert. Even seven students can seem like an army when all eyes are on me. In the computer class, doing a demonstration is different from leading a discussion. I don't have to talk about feelings—theirs and mine. I don't have to share. I just have to describe the actions needed to format values, or copy cell contents, or absolute a cell reference. Just the facts.

Like a wimp, I told Amy if she could get permission to swap, I would be willing. She was off like a shot. Within three minutes she was back with a look of profound relief on her face. She announced to the class that I would be taking over come Thursday. I waved at them tentatively. They sized me up. And that was that. As I went off to PowerPoint, I wondered guiltily how the College & Career Success students would feel about having Amy take over their class. After all, it's unprofessional to switch instructors mid-stream, as it were. But the good of the many (15 Excel students) outweighed the good of the few (7 CCS students and 2 PowerPoint students). The utilitarian philosophy wins again.

I haven't seen the fly for a few minutes. My cat is lounging again, stretched out on his favorite blue cotton throw rug. Did he catch and eat that fly, I wonder? Is he looking smug and well-fed? Nuts. Eddie always looks smug and well-fed. He could be digesting a fly. Then again, the fly could have migrated into less turbulent airspace, AKA my bedroom. Guess I'll find out.

All aboard the bus to Point Despair and parts beyond

Whenever I hit a roadblock in my writing, I open up the blog, my cry to heaven. The blog listens and doesn't talk back. Everyone should have a blog or two, for each of their personalities. Oh, wait, am I the only one with multiple...? Come on, you have a nest of mean, spiteful dwarfs in your mental cave too, admit it.

Speaking of personalities, yesterday I conducted an experiment on my six-person business management class. These are the healthcare admin majors, all women in their late 20s-early 30s, who (a) think they know all they need to know about business, having already taken the upper level organizational management class (a scheduling glitch), and (b) think that they will never need to know anything about business, because soon they will be employed at some big hospital, taking orders from a boss they don't like or respect, performing tasks they couldn't care less about, and waiting for the day when they can finally do what they want (hair designer, auto mechanic, photographer).

It confounds me that they would intentionally detour away from their dreams into the bleak corporate world of managed healthcare. I prostituted myself to the corporate world in order to survive, but it was never an intentional life plan! After they told me their plans to achieve their dreams, and bluntly told me (a) they didn't care about the material, (b) the class is a waste of time, and (c) they are only attending because of the attendance requirement, well, you can imagine how useless I felt. I gaped at them like a puffer fish. The first thing I said was, “I don't know what to say.” They all laughed.

So the next class period, I led them in a decision making exercise. Their mission: to decide how they wanted to spend the last three weeks of the term. We brainstormed a list of activities. I was the scribe. Predictable suggestions filled the board: Work on the course project. Skip the last quiz. Have the teacher give us all the answers to the last quiz. I wrote down everything they said, and added one of my own. (Do an activity of Carol's choice instead of discussing the material.)

When we ran dry of ideas, I asked them to vote on their top two or three choices. The winners: Go to the lab to work on the project, and Do an activity of Carol's choice. Wow. I sure wasn't expecting that. (And no, I did not allow myself a vote.)

Hence, yesterday's experiment. I proposed another decision making technique known as Six Hats Thinking, introduced by Edward de Bono. It's a colorful group technique that uses parallel thinking to discuss a problem and arrive at possible solutions. Each participant in the group wears an imaginary hat and assumes a role associated with the hat color. Accordingly, I made table tents with each color: White Hat (focuses on the facts), Black Hat (devil's advocate), Red Hat (emotional perspective), Green Hat (creative solutions), Yellow Hat (the bright side), Blue Hat (the facilitator), and I added one extra hat, Purple Hat (the ethical perspective). I figured I deserved some extra points for the cool table tents, if nothing else. (I should have made paper hats, darn, why didn't I think of that sooner?)

It would have been a great experiment with a different group. First off, two of the six students were absent. The four that were left eyed my table tents with skepticism. The hair stylist wannabe said, “I'm getting a bad feeling.”

“Where is your sense of adventure?” I asked, faking a smile. “Your sense of curiosity?”

She looked at me like I had dirty underwear on my head. Disbelief mixed with disgust. Ignoring her look, I took the Blue Hat tent for myself and let them each choose their hat color from the remaining tents, working off the premise that if you want a child to participate willingly you offer her a choice. (Do you want to wear the Monkees t-shirt or the Bob Dylan t-shirt?) They grabbed and fought over the table tents, and I waited, content to let the universe decide the outcome. When the dust settled, everyone had a table tent designating their hat color, including the two empty spaces where the absent students usually sat. We were a group, in spirit, if not in body.

As Blue Hat, my job was to facilitate each person's role, helping them consider the problem from the perspective of their hat color. I presented the first scenario: should Congress approve a national AIDS database registry to help researchers collect information to help stem the spread of AIDS in Africa? I read the scenario, and then waited. We all stared at each other. They could tell I was waiting for someone to say something.

“I don't understand,” said Yellow Hat.

“Your hat looks on the bright side,” I explained encouragingly. “What are all the positive reasons to create a national database of AIDs victims?”

“I don't know what you mean. I don't see any positive reasons.”

“Do you see any negative reasons? Maybe you can put on the Black Hat for a moment, since Ariana isn't here today.”

“What?”

Eventually we got a discussion rolling. In a few minutes, after some heated debate, Green Hat came up with a solution that satisfied Red Hat and Purple Hat. We were triumphant. I won't describe the other two scenarios, except to say the last one, on whether the Affordable Healthcare Act mandate requiring young people to purchase should be allowed to stand, brought out an immediate and emphatic “No!” from all parties the moment I finished reading the scenario. It seems clear I am the only bleeding heart liberal in the bunch, if not in the entire school. 


Tonight I only have two classes, one of which is another section of business management. The one student (yes, one student left standing) loves the world of business, intends to be self-employed, and slurps up all the information and stories I present. We leave the class still talking. We walk up the stairs still talking. He wants more. He's the ideal learner. He doesn't need me. I'm just a catalyst for learning, not the source. Suddenly there is hope. I'm not on the bus to Point Despair anymore. Somewhere along the route I transferred onto the bus to Acceptance Avenue. Maybe someday I'll make it onto the bus to Hope Harbor. That's iffy, though. It doesn't run nearly as often as the bus to Point Despair.

What should I say when a student says, “I can't do it”?

I've been covering a keyboarding class for a colleague who was out for the first two weeks of the term. On Monday she returned in high dudgeon because her schedule had been revised and no one had bothered to notify her. (Not my job.) Her day probably went downhill from there, but I only saw the hour we spent together in the keyboarding lab. I found myself wishing my cell phone had a video camera. What I saw was a lesson in the power of our brains to create complete and utter shite.

We keep some of our keyboarding materials in a big dented metal cabinet, imprisoned by a combination lock. When I told her the combination, my colleague (I'll call her Betsy) solemnly proclaimed, “I can't do it. Not gonna happen.”

“What?” I said, taken aback.

“I can't open those things. I can't do it. Not gonna happen.”

We walked out of the classroom and stood in front of the metal cabinet. She stared bleakly at the lock. “I can't do it. Not gonna happen.”

“Try it.”

She gingerly touched the lock. She turned the knob as if it were a handle on a jack-in-the-box, like any moment a leering evil head on a spring was going to jump out at her and make her look like an idiot. She cautiously turned the knob again, and then gave it a weak yank. It didn't open. “See? I told you. I can't do it.”

I refused to take her word for it. I muscled her out of the way and grabbed the lock. I twisted it expertly.

“Like this. To the right, then back to the left, then right again, and stop.” I stood aside and made a motion that she should pull the lock open. It opened, of course. She looked resigned. “I told you.”

I stared at her for a moment, wondering how she had managed to survive life thus far. Then I briskly implemented Plan B.

“No problem!” I said brightly. “See this file cabinet? We keep a few in the top drawer. Just make sure you have at least five books in here and you'll be fine.”

That was how our “training session ” began. I'll tell you how it ended in another post, if I remember. What did I learn? I'm not sure. When a student says, “I can't do it. Not gonna happen,” should I take her at her word? Or should I hold the possibility of success for her, until she can achieve it for herself? 

Launch the lifeboats, the ship is sinking!

The term ended today at the career college. Last week was spent preparing finals, administering finals, and grading finals to the few students who actually showed up. (I know, like, who wouldn't show up to the final?) I took time out from all the grading to wonder how some students could, despite ten weeks of reminders, pleas, and threats, turn in no work during the entire term and have an expectation of passing the course. And as I reflected on how few Access tests I had to grade (bonus!), an increasing amount of my time was spent wondering how long this career college is going to survive.

I love that terms are only ten weeks long. I hate that, after the term is over, we have no time to process or reflect on our 10-week journey. No time to think about what we would like to improve. No time to create new assignments we hope will be more engaging than the lame things we did last term. I submitted my last grade packet this morning, but some instructors will be spending their weekend grading. Grades are due Monday morning, and first thing Monday morning we launch into a new term. With so little time to reflect, grade, and prepare, how can we possibly do a good job?

I wish I had something good to say, some cheery and uplifting observation, sort of like the pithy and pointed remarks my father used to say, along the lines of, “Hey, you have a job, what are you bellyaching about?” I should be grateful. I'm not. What I am is burned out.

The amount of effort, angst, grief, and frustration that goes into the ending of a term and the prospect of beginning a new one has led me to one unsettling conclusion: I need a new job. But where can I find a job that pays me full-time wages for part-time work? Until I finish this stupid doctorate, I am stuck.

So what, who cares. In about eight weeks, I will have forgotten how crappy I feel right now.

A little more venting, and then I'm done. Today, in addition to the grading and prepping, as we do at the end of every term, we attended three hours of in-service workshops designed to make us better teachers. I could tell them what would make me a better teacher: Let me get enough sleep. Give me some time to process what I've experienced. A door prize of a school t-shirt or a Wells Fargo grocery bag is not going to cut it. My boss's boss, who is the business program director at another campus, sat by me in one session. He wrote something on a piece of paper and turned it so I could see it. He wrote, “I had zero starts.”

Zero starts! He told me we need 64 students at our site to break even. If every new student actually shows up on Monday, new starts at all three campuses will total 64. Clearly the ship has crashed on the rocks and is taking on water fast. Launch the lifeboats. Mucky-mucks, no cuts. We are watching you.

Speaking of mucky-mucks, they were around at the end of the day, lurking like the mostly invisible creatures they are, coming out after dark to flit around the building. At 5:00, we got the news: Time to leave. Evening orientation was canceled due to lack of enrollments. Everyone out of the building. As I lugged my bags full of last term's binders toward the door, I passed the president of the college and another man in a suit. Both looked quite relaxed, standing in the lobby, smiling. I wanted to ask them what they had to smile about, but I didn't. Oh wait, let me guess. I bet you have some pretty nice golden parachutes to save you if the company goes under. Not me. But I'm not going down with this ship. Last one out is fishfood. Beat you to the lifeboat.

Embracing our quirks and eccentricities

At the career college, the term is winding down. Two weeks to go. In my Professional Development class, we are immersed in the tense and exciting process of mock interviews, three a day until everyone has a chance to be interviewed. For ten minutes, each student is in the hot seat, center stage, as he or she is interviewed by a panel of peers in front of the rest of the class. Everyone, including me, fills out an evaluation form on the “candidate,” the results of which I compile and give to the student a week or so after the interview.

These are the many, the loud, the medical assistants. In general, a certain type of personality is drawn to this helping profession. They tend to be extraverts, excruciatingly social, always talking, texting, moving, laughing. They mostly swarm together, like a flock of magpies, or maybe a coven of shiny crows is a better metaphor, yakking back and forth, perched across chairs and tables. And then suddenly, about ten minutes before the end of class, whoosh! They rise up en masse: class is over, we're outta here! I have to wave them back down to the ground, back to their seats.

The mock interviews proceed with many groans, sweaty palms, and fidgety knees. A few students, when placed in the limelight, behave the way I expect them to, ignoring the requirement to dress professionally, belligerently responding to questions with terse and sarcastic answers, obviously despising the process (and me). But sometimes I am delighted at the hidden personalities that emerge when the student is on the spot. Then I realize they don't all fly together. There are a few introverts in this swarm of crows. My people.

But just because they are introverts doesn't mean they are shy! Students who have said virtually nothing all term suddenly blossom when asked “Tell me about yourself,” exuding confidence and depths hitherto unseen and unimagined. It makes me love them and their secret lives, which they keep well-hidden and protected in a social setting that can be brutal and ruthless. Did you know crows eat smaller birds? It's true.

One of the students, an extreme extravert, had clearly had experience being interviewed, a lot more experience than her panel of interviewers had interviewing. She played them like the pro she was, tossing their questions back at them with a carefree, breezy style. The panel rallied bravely and dug deeper.

“If you could be a superhero, who would you be?”

“Wonderwoman, of course,” the candidate proclaimed triumphantly.

“What word would you use to describe yourself?”

“Fun-loving!”

“If your life were a book, what would be the title?”

“The quirky and eccentric world of [insert student name here]!”

I could feel myself cringing a little, imagining an employer's response to that declaration of individuality, even as I silently applauded her. She displayed her authentic personality like a banner, clearly proud to be a nut. (And she is a nut, I think—later she told me she has to take some pill before she can go on an interview, else she will be so hyperactive she'll be communicating from another time zone. Sort of a nut, maybe more like a wackjob, technically speaking.)

Every day, after the third interview, we take ten minutes to debrief. The extraverts are so excited, they all talk at once. I have to beg time for the introverts to share their insights. We discuss the potential benefits and pitfalls of telling an interviewer that one is eccentric, quirky, and fun-loving. The consensus is usually this: Why on earth would we want to work for an organization that doesn't appreciate who we are?

Why indeed?

Make sure your paragraphs are straightforward and reasonably short

I'm working on an outline of the literature review section of my dissertation proposal. The project is daunting in scope. I have to take frequent naps. What is my topic? Thanks for asking. Faculty perceptions of academic quality in onsite Gainful Employment programs. I think. You are probably going, what? Faculty perceptions of what? Right, I know. I feel the same way.

Every now and then I am assigned a class to teach, in which the students are required to write essays. Right now I'm teaching an ethics course to a group of seven paralegal students. Remember, this is the Associate of Applied Science degree in Legal Arts, so we aren't talking about capstones, theses, or dissertations here. I ask for five paragraphs. Count 'em. Five. That's all, just five paragraphs per essay. I give them a choice of topic and remind them to use the textbook as a source.

Then I proceed to draw my famous OreoÒ cookie diagram on the board to describe how they should set up their five-paragraph essay. The top layer of the cookie is the introduction, with at least five sentences. The first sentence of the introduction is the “hook,” that is, the story or statistic that will get the reader's attention. The next three sentences are the three “preview points,” previewing the topics of the following three paragraphs. The fifth sentence is the thesis statement, the claim they are attempting to prove. I tell them to write the introductory paragraph after they have written the three paragraphs of the body.

The body of the essay (the creamy filling) consists of three paragraphs on three aspects of the main topic. Bla bla bla. I tell them to make sure each paragraph is focused on one aspect and roughly five sentences. And then, using the whiteboard marker, I draw some lines to connect the topic sentences of each paragraph back to the preview points in the introduction. I assume that because I am a visual learner, everyone else is, too. At this point, I usually turn and look at the students. Are they drawing my diagram in their notebooks? Yes! My work is done. Are they texting on their smart phone? Give up now, it's hopeless.

I tell them to cheat on the closing paragraph. “Just copy the introductory paragraph!” I smirk. “Rephrase the three preview points, reaffirm your conclusion about the claim (did you prove it?), and wrap up with the hook you opened with. Voila!” At that point, they look at me like I'm insane. Probably they didn't take French in high school.

“And don't forget,” I warn them, “Your works cited page is always the last page of your essay! Not a separate file, not the next paragraph, no! Insert a manual page break! Hanging indent! Use the OWL!” I'm sure you agree, after seeing the cookie diagram, the five-paragraph essay should be a piece of cake. Cookie. Whatever. The five-paragraph structure should be clear, right? But what do you think happens?

The brutal truth: It's a good thing I'm not an English instructor, because I'd have to kill myself. The results this term have been less then stellar. Typically, I'm getting a four-paragraph essay in which the writer takes off on a personal rant in the introduction. Preview points: non-existent. The body: random thoughts and uncited quotes stolen from Web sources. Closing paragraph: missing completely. Works cited: starts half-way down page 2, consisting of all two of the Web sites visited, perhaps with URLs, and displaying grievously incorrect formatting. In one case, the hanging indent was imitated using spaces, a novel solution requiring many unnecessary keystrokes, but when you are getting paid by the hour, who cares.

Confoundingly, out of six people, two have turned in nothing. Nothing. Apparently the task of writing five paragraphs is so overwhelming they chose paralysis over mediocrity. Can't say I blame them, been there, done that. But this is college, I'm the instructor, and it's my job to motivate/beat/shame/bribe them into doing something. Anything. Who cares if your paragraphs are straightforward and reasonably short. Just write something!

Appearances are everything

I revised my concept paper according to the suggestions offered by my chair and resubmitted it, a process which took less than an hour. While I wait for a response, I am pondering yet another odd aspect of life—the inordinate power of appearances. That is, how things look often seems to have more impact than how things really are.

Let me give you some examples. People sometimes say I look tired. They don't ask if I am tired. They assume that I am tired based on my appearance. (In most cases, they would be correct.) Here's a better example. People often say I look angry. Because I am a chronic malcontent, over the years my bad attitude has carved a deep fissure between my eyebrows. You know how some people have laugh lines? Not me. I have a permanent scowl. My former significant other called it stinkeye, just one of the reasons we are no longer a couple. This vertical groove is present whether I am happy or sad, angry or elated. It is now a permanent topological feature on the landscape of my face. Only cosmetic surgery will make me appear happy.

But that is what I mean. It's just an appearance. On the surface I may look angry, but inside I may be happy. Well, if not happy, at least neutral. But you will never know if you don't ask.

In my family, success was closely tied to appearances. No one cared how you felt. It only mattered how you looked. If you looked good, then you were good. So simple, yet so destructive. My father wanted me to look like a girl. "Why don't you wear some of those nice Ship and Shore outfits," he asked me once. Now I know he just wanted me to be happy, and the path to happiness was to look good. At the time I interpreted his request as a demand for me to be someone else, some perfectly attired, traditionally coiffed creature that I could never be.

I spent a lot of time trying to look good. When that didn't make me feel good, I moved to Los Angeles and started wearing the most bizarre outfits I could create on my little Singer 503A. Think shiny black vinyl capes over jumpsuits with padded shoulders the size of small turkeys. Picture pale Oregon skin, spiked hennaed hair, and black-burgundy lipstick. Since then, anytime I feel like I'm losing my sense of self, I shave my head. It's my way of reclaiming my identity.

I have a co-worker I will call Sheryl. She and I are often mistaken for one another. Because I had a sister, I know what it feels like to be mistaken for another. I'm used to it. When students call out for help, I answer to Carol, Sheryl, and everything in between. It's odd, though, because Sheryl and I look nothing alike. Apart from the obvious facts that we are female and on the downside of middle age, we have few similarities. Sheryl is blonde. I wear a black cap, so who knows what color my hair is. Sheryl wears brightly colored clothes. I strive everyday to impersonate Johnny Cash. I'm pretty sure Sheryl doesn't shop at Goodwill. The only things I buy new are underwear, socks, and shoes: Everything else I wear has been well broken in by someone before me.

In temperament we are dissimilar as well. Sheryl is goodnatured, committed to her job, and devoted to her students. I, on the other hand, am a chronic malcontent, committed to nothing, and devoted mostly to getting enough light. But I do my best to show up and maintain the appearance that I care. After all, I may feel chronically malcontented, but I can look good doing it.

Abolish the fences: give me your tired, your poor...

We have an abundance of fresh water here in the Pacific Northwest. Right now, as the meteorologists proclaim the wettest month on record and rivers and streams are flooding, it's hard to imagine there are places on the planet that hardly have any rainfall. Ever. If I lived there, I'd try to get here.

Which inspires me to wonder what it would be like if people were allowed to move freely about the surface of the earth. I sometimes wish there were no fences, walls, or boundaries, that people could be free to come and go as they please. With only natural boundaries to hinder them, would most people eventually wander to the temperate zones, where usually there is enough water, where usually the land is arable, where usually the weather is not out to kill you? Political boundaries are imaginary. What if we all imagined them gone? Well, I guess even though they are man-made, not natural, they are real enough to get you killed or imprisoned if you crossed one, even accidentally. So maybe my imagination has a death wish.

When I am lucky enough to teach Verbal Communication, there are usually a half-dozen or so students in the class. I often assign a group exercise in which the class must work together to choose a topic of vital concern to the entire world, propose a solution, and present it to the audience (me and anyone else I can wrangle). The topics usually are environmentally related, but one particularly memorable class stands out in my mind. As I recall, there were three young male criminal justice students in this group. Two of them I was rather fond of: we instructors called them Frick and Frack, two oddballs that became friends by reason of close proximity. The third was loud, opinionated, and oddly charismatic, despite his buzz cut and security guard uniform.

The students chose the topic of illegal immigration. Their contention was that illegal immigrants were taking over America. Their solution: build a 30-foot tall, 30-foot deep fence along the entire border between the U.S. and Mexico.

One of the things I try to teach students in Verbal Communication is to know the audience. If they had taken time to ask, they would have discovered that I am probably the only person in the U.S. in favor of immigration. I support everyone who seeks a better life for their families, as long as they abide by basic principles of human kindness and decency. This group of students failed to ask me my views, and so I was regaled with a litany of selectively chosen and obviously mangled facts, ethnic stereotyping, and offensive recommendations. I sat there and took it. I focused on the delivery, not the message, not the messengers. I listened. And I felt sick.

Truthfully, even if they had asked, and had I been brave enough to answer, they would probably have done their best to convince me that my position was untenable, if not downright insane, and that, after listening to their presentation, I would be persuaded to change my humanistic beliefs for something a little less humanistic. But more American.

You could say I'm not a very good American. I don't fly the flag on holidays. After September 11, I didn't put little flags on the four corners of my Honda CRX and prowl the streets like an embassy diplomat. I don't go to parades, baseball games, or eat apple pie. Don't misunderstand me: I am glad I was born here rather than the Ukraine, Afghanistan, or Somalia. It was just blind chance, though. A geographical blip that put me here rather than there. I don't take my good fortune for granted. (Although I wouldn't mind a little less rain.)

Rather than patriotically proclaiming my fortunate status as an American, I favor the moniker global citizen. Is there a flag? I would put it in my window if there was one. Citizen of the Planet Earth. When the day comes that we have colonies on the moon and Mars, and those colonies rise up, fighting to be free from Earth's evil tyranny, I suppose I'll be required to fly that flag. Or emigrate to the colonies.

I know I'm just barking out my butt on this one. If you knew where I lived, you'd probably have to kill me. Can I claim in my defense that I read too much science fiction? Well, it really doesn't matter, does it? We're all going to hell in a hand-basket sooner or later, if we don't stop destroying our habitat. And in terms of geological time, my life is a speck. In another earth breath, in another earth heartbeat, I'll be dead and forgotten.

How do we evaluate the value of a college education?

The thought-provoking subject of NPR's Talk of the Nation radio program today was an all-too-brief exploration of the challenge of using standardized tests to measure college student outcomes, which we presume are indicators of academic quality. The three guests on the program discussed the difficulty of designing tests to measure qualities like critical thinking skills, communication skills, and reasoning skills.

The discussion echoed concerns I often feel as I study the topic of higher education academic quality. As I listened, it occurred to me that before designing methods to evaluate quality, we need to spend some time defining quality. Many definitions of higher education quality have been proposed; however, the panorama of higher education includes diverse institutions, each with a unique mission, purpose, and definition of acceptable student outcomes. In other words, agreement on a definition of quality is unlikely if not impossible.

A popular conception of academic quality in the U.S. views quality in terms of fitness for purpose. Quality assessment objectives are evaluated based on how well the institution meets its stated purposes, as described by its mission and institutional objectives. To see this in action, review a school's mission statement for clues to understanding how the school defines quality. For example, one local career college promises to be "uncompromisingly dedicated to helping people improve their lives through high-quality, college-level, career education." The purpose of education at this institution can be found in the word "career."  Because education at this school is all about job placement, success or failure can be measured in terms of job placement rates.

But wait. Is it possible there is more to a college education than just obtaining employment after graduation? Before we can define quality we need agreement on the purposes of a college education. What is a college education for, anyway? Is it solely to provide practical job skills, such as computer literacy or high-temperature welding? Is it to teach those difficult-to-measure skills like critical thinking, communication, and reasoning? Is it to do both? Can a college education do both?

The U.S. Department of Education has decreed in its recent Gainful Employment Debt Measures rule that academic quality in higher education consists of providing value to consumers and taxpayers by meeting minimum standards: students graduate, students get jobs, students pay back their student loans. Considering that taxpayer dollars subsidize public institutions in the form of grants and for-profit institutions in the form of access to student loan funding, it should not be surprising that the government wants to ensure institutions are in compliance with these standards. The DOE has enlisted the accrediting agencies to motivate compliance. Compliance is the new buzzword at career colleges, where great sums of money are spent paying people to figure out how to comply with government regulations.

Another definition of quality would have us measuring how well we meet the needs of the students—the so-called customer satisfaction model. Anyone who thinks that buying an education is similar to buying a toaster has been shopping online at the diploma mills. Student evaluations of instructors and programs are collected every term at at least one career college I know of. Faculty live or die by these evaluations. Are students really the best judge of academic quality? The instructors who are "nice" and "easy" get higher evaluations from students. Does that mean these instructors provide better academic quality? Probably not.

The radio show got me thinking. I've barely scratched the surface of a deep, vast topic. I felt like I had something to add to the radio conversation today, but I would never be brave enough to call in to TOTN. The mere thought of speaking to Neal Conan in person sends me into a hot flash. He's like the Tom Jones of talk radio. So I sent an email. Of course, it wasn't read on the air, but I felt a bit more like a valuable contributor for having sent it.

I've been sent to committee

It sounds ominous, but being sent to committee is a good thing in this case. This means my concept paper is making the rounds of my faceless, nameless committee. This terse message, "Sent to committee," from my Chair indicates one of two things: Either she thought the paper was good enough to warrant the next step toward approval, or she couldn't be bothered to read it and she is expecting the committee to do her work for her. Considering the unsteady relationship we have, I assume the latter. But I could be wrong.

It may not matter soon anyway. My illustrious university is changing the way it handles the dissertation process. After numerous complaints and a few withdrawals (frothily documented in the discussion folders), the administration has decided the process needs revising. Instead of letting any old flaky adjunct be Chair of a committee, they will now endeavor to ensure that only full-time faculty are allowed to be Chair. The adjuncts can still be members of the committee, apparently, just not Chair. Of course, I know from experience that full-time status does not preclude flakiness.

I hope this will affect my process positively. In other words, I hope my Chair is replaced by someone who will actually show up, be committed, and give me timely feedback. Actually, at this point, any feedback at all would send me into a tearful frenzy of gratitude.

I've stopped filling out the post-course surveys. As soon as I finished all my course work and embarked upon the research phase, I realized that I would quite likely encounter some of these mentors again. And that has been the case. I am not stupid. If I rate my academic experience honestly, and describe my disappointments in detail, that information will eventually be shared with the mentors. It won't be difficult for them to identify which malcontent submitted such eloquently negative feedback, thus jeopardizing any harmonious working relationship I might have had with them if they should end up appointed to my dissertation committee.

Students at the college where I am employed are asked each term to fill out evaluation forms to rate their instructors, courses, and the school overall. When I was a new adjunct, lo, these many (eight) years ago, I remember I was given the results of some student evaluations before the end of the term. I was appalled. I knew the evaluations weren't going to be complimentary, but that isn't why I was shocked. The point is that they were given to me before the end of the term, before I turned in grades, while I was in a position to retaliate against the students that gave me negative feedback. This class was divided into two armed camps: the students who loved me and the ones who wanted to lynch me. I could have really let them have it.

For a brief moment I considered what I could do to punish those students who dared to write negative feedback about me. Give them extra writing assignments, make them give an oral report, or just knock ten points off the top, whoops, too bad you didn't do so well on that last test. Then I thought, wait, what a gift. When I took off my angry teacher hat and put on my marketing hat, I realized I had been given a golden opportunity—or as we say in higher education, I had encountered a teaching moment. First of all, those students were a mirror for me, reflecting back what they thought I did well and what I needed to improve. That's valuable information that can help me learn and grow. Any serious student of marketing knows the value of customer feedback. Second, I was being given a chance to connect with them, person to person, to build a genuine connection, even with the ones who hated me.

And that is what I did. I stood in front of the class, told them I had received their feedback, and thanked them for being honest. Then I told them never to do it again.

"I know who wrote what," I said. "I know your writing style, I recognize your voices. You have given me power over you now. I can make your lives a living hell for the rest of the term."

They stared at me, round-eyed. A few guilty ones quickly looked away.

"I'm not going to do anything with this information except try to do a better job." I said. "But you all need to protect yourselves. If this school has a habit of giving the evaluation results to instructors before the grades are in, then you place yourself in a position of danger. Normally I say tell the truth, give honest feedback. But this time, I say, don't."

We made it through the term. I don't recall that I flunked anyone, and I didn't get fired. In fact, I got hired on full-time.

At an in-service some time later, I asked why I had been given evaluation results before the end of the term. That question, and others like it, have never been satisfactorily answered. Over the years I have come to realize that the institution I work for is as dysfunctional as any mom and pop business can be, run by pompous ignoramuses masquerading as educators and administrators. The fact that I've been "sent to committee" means I am one step closer to joining their ranks. Tra-la-la. I can hardly wait.

Another day in the life of an Access instructor

Today I watched my group of seven Access students struggle through their first test. They are a motley bunch of unique individuals. Four paralegals, and three business students, all women. The paralegals sit together in a row. The business students sit alone, far away from each other and the paralegals. I'm not sure if that is significant. I stood at the back of the room, trying to keep my eyes open and my mouth shut.

Today, J., a heavyset girl with porcelain skin, was hunched over in pain from a gall bladder attack. Drama being her middle name, I'm not sure how much of her ponderous movements and expression of suffering was for my benefit and how much was actual pain. Next to her sat her friend, dark-haired M., blazing through the test at a fevered pace. (Later I discovered she didn't do half the work. I heard from another teacher she is planning to drop out to get married and live on an army base. I hope she won't need any job skills there.) Next to M. sat K., tall, heavy, immature, and on probation for cheating. It's difficult to think of anything else when I see her: cheater, there goes the cheater. By the window sat A., the best student in the group, possibly in the entire cohort, maybe in the entire school. She certainly has the best attitude. If every student were like A., what an effortless pleasure this job would be.

In the back sat C., alone in more ways than one: the obvious lesbian, wearing men's shirts, and carrying a huge head on her tiny thin body. She is my favorite in the group, although we rarely speak. An older gal, R., sits in the back on the other side by the printer, bashing her way through the test as if to demonstrate her competency. I'm standing behind her. I can see what she is doing. She finds her way eventually, but competency isn't the word I would use to describe her process. The last business admin, the blonde M., is a forty-ish round apple-shaped bubble of energy perched on stick legs.

Blonde M. finished the test early. She trotted up to me, waving her printouts, and said, "Our other instructors always let us leave after we finish a test. Can I go?"

I'm not sure what rankled me, the fact that she felt like she was exempt from the request at the end of the test that students stay to work on their lessons, or that she thought I should knuckle under to the pressure to let students leave early because other instructors apparently do. I could have said, sure, go forth and prosper, grasshopper, but I didn't. What I said was, "You need to be here for a certain amount of time in order to get credit for the class period."

"I have to take my son to a doctor's appointment," she protested.

"What if the test had taken you the full two hours?" I asked. "Would you have stayed to finish the test?"

"Well, yeah!"

"Well, then why can't you stay now?"

She gaped at me, looking a lot like a goldfish I used to have, except less orange.

She trotted off to have a cigarette, slightly miffed. I leaned against the table at the back of the room, silently urging the rest of them to hurry up and finish. One by one, they did.