Looking for work
Many of my colleagues have had it rough this academic year. Sessional/contract positions are slim to none, and those of us who really want to teach, who are in academia not necessarily for the research aspect but rather the pedagogical one have been forced to find other kinds of work, where ever we can. I know that the economy is difficult for everyone right now, but the sheer amount of unemployed PhDs (especially in the Arts and Humanities) is staggering, and indicates a failure in the system. I have been contemplating this failure in the system, the sources, the possible ways to fix this problem. I know I am not the only one that has been thinking about this. ACCUTE has yearly numbers on the number of graduates, how many get tenure track positions, or CLTA (numbers can be found at the bottom of this page). The numbers tell a sorry tale, in 06-07 of those schools who reported back there were 41 graduates, 37% got TTs and 15% got CLTAs. So what happened to the remaining 48%? Ah the mysterious 48% percent of actual finished graduated PhDs where are you? I suspect that a majority of them are still looking for work. What about the ABDs like myself who need the financial support to finish the degree (for rent must be paid, groceries purchased)? I like to think that graduate students are often times thought of as made of ether. We do not need shelter, we do not need food, we exist in the books we read, gently hovering over the keyboards of our laptops, haunting the halls of various library stacks, we are in the air, we are our thoughts.
The reality is, we need a roof over our head, we need food, and we are not provided for financially by the system that is in place. "Get a real job!" scream the masses, "Work like everybody else". I love those arguments because they allow me to say the following:
"I do have a real job, I am a teacher, I am part of the backbone of the post-secondary academic structure. Without the work I do, courses would not happen, little Suzie or Bobby would not have the choice of 3 different lecture times for the same course, and 10 different tutorials. I give them the tools to think about things critically, to understand that the Family Guy episode they watched on Sunday was something called satire. I let them know that wikipedia is a questionable source of information, easily manipulated, pliable to power dynamics. It is because of me that they know that "your" is a possessive and "you're" is the contraction of you are, and to know the difference between the two and remember it. Hopefully they will also not turn into those people who use quotation marks as jazz hands for emphasis. Once I have done all of that, I get to go home and do my own work, my own research, my own writing, about something that I am interested in and enjoy, as I have my ramen noodle of choice or maybe some Kraft Dinner, for though I am the backbone of the structure I am not financially compensated as such. I do this for the chance of one day teaching more courses, letting more students know about important things such as metaphors, and thesis statements, so that they in turn can be our future, a bright future, where things are debated, organized, efficiently, effectively, to make this world a better place."
Sound a tad utopian? Well in the end that is what we do, that is what graduate students do. The failure is within the system, the architecture of it all, and it can be seen in the classrooms. A functional effective ethical classroom is one where the power structure of teacher in front, students in a quadrilateral arrangement is disrupted. There needs to be dialogue between the two, movement, understanding. In this new arrangement everyone feels empowered, everyone becomes part of the educational experience.
Maybe it is time that the academic structure is disrupted as well, maybe when a top down model is shifted it will open up a more organic progression to education, for don't we all learn differently? I am not saying it will be easy, change never is, but maybe this would be a step in the right direction, to help all of us who are looking day after day for the opportunity to educate, to instruct, to share in the learning environment. Until then.... I will be here looking for work, designing assignments, reading articles, contemplating strategies. Why?...because I love to teach.
The reality is, we need a roof over our head, we need food, and we are not provided for financially by the system that is in place. "Get a real job!" scream the masses, "Work like everybody else". I love those arguments because they allow me to say the following:
"I do have a real job, I am a teacher, I am part of the backbone of the post-secondary academic structure. Without the work I do, courses would not happen, little Suzie or Bobby would not have the choice of 3 different lecture times for the same course, and 10 different tutorials. I give them the tools to think about things critically, to understand that the Family Guy episode they watched on Sunday was something called satire. I let them know that wikipedia is a questionable source of information, easily manipulated, pliable to power dynamics. It is because of me that they know that "your" is a possessive and "you're" is the contraction of you are, and to know the difference between the two and remember it. Hopefully they will also not turn into those people who use quotation marks as jazz hands for emphasis. Once I have done all of that, I get to go home and do my own work, my own research, my own writing, about something that I am interested in and enjoy, as I have my ramen noodle of choice or maybe some Kraft Dinner, for though I am the backbone of the structure I am not financially compensated as such. I do this for the chance of one day teaching more courses, letting more students know about important things such as metaphors, and thesis statements, so that they in turn can be our future, a bright future, where things are debated, organized, efficiently, effectively, to make this world a better place."
Sound a tad utopian? Well in the end that is what we do, that is what graduate students do. The failure is within the system, the architecture of it all, and it can be seen in the classrooms. A functional effective ethical classroom is one where the power structure of teacher in front, students in a quadrilateral arrangement is disrupted. There needs to be dialogue between the two, movement, understanding. In this new arrangement everyone feels empowered, everyone becomes part of the educational experience.
Maybe it is time that the academic structure is disrupted as well, maybe when a top down model is shifted it will open up a more organic progression to education, for don't we all learn differently? I am not saying it will be easy, change never is, but maybe this would be a step in the right direction, to help all of us who are looking day after day for the opportunity to educate, to instruct, to share in the learning environment. Until then.... I will be here looking for work, designing assignments, reading articles, contemplating strategies. Why?...because I love to teach.
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