I’m Seeing Green

I‘ve had one mutha of a migraine so posting and commenting has been limited to the amount of time my swollen left eye and my right eye, which seems to have shrunk to the size of a pea, could tolerate the glaring light from my computer monitor.  That is, until I discovered the dimmer switch on my monitor.  Modern technology is amazing, yes?  No.  My monitor was so dim that I was actually squinting to read and I’m sure that being two inches from the screen caused me to absorb an overdose of gamma radiation that will manifest itself in green skin, destructive tendencies, and tattered clothes when I’m provoked to wrath or other extremes of emotion.

And provoked I was as I had a gabillion papers and finals to grade this weekend before the grade submission deadline today.  Yes, I waited until the last minute.  Intentionally.  Submitting the grades before the Winter Break would have ensured that I received frantic calls and emails over Christmas and New Year’s like the ones I’ve been receiving today:  “y u gv me b?” or “Can I do extra credit?” I was not going to deal with that teeth-grinding madness over the holidays when I was trying to feel love and joy for my fellow (wo)man.

But of all things that had me foaming at the mouth this weekend, it wasn’t papers that contained sentences like, “In her own external world scholarly bystanders and men the world around her and although menacing through her poetry she was able to combat it,” or “The mind is a terrible thing to waste.  Unless it’s not.” No, it wasn’t these gems of budding literary genius that had me tearing out my hair.  It was a phone call with a family friend.

I avoided making the Happy New Year phone call to this friend because I knew how the conversation would go. 

Me: Happy New Year! 

FF: Happy New Year to you!  So, you are graduating.  Again.  Ever the professional student.  I guess now you have to face the real world.

No conversation with this person is complete without the words “Professional student” and “real world” spewing from his mouth.  Forget green, just typing those words makes me see red.  Now, this person knows I hated being an attorney.  Making sure that Company A gets Company B’s money so that it can eventually screw over Company C just wasn’t where it was at for me.  It was even worse when I was working to make sure that Companies A, B, and C had enough money and legal loopholes to make sure they could screw over people like you and me. But I suppose that’s the real world.  The real world means that you must be unhappy as long as you are making lots of money.

Apparently, getting my Masters so I can teach in college is an unworthy pursuit.  I love my job.  I love 7 out of 10 of my students.  The other three students I consider character building experiences.  Whoever you don’t kill makes you stronger and all that.  And you know what?  I need advanced degrees so I can do what I love because in spite of the emails offers that I receive almost daily promising that I can get a MbAdegree MasterPHD DIploma just by sending in tree-fitty. The real world just doesn’t work that way.  I tried to steer the conversation in another direction but he asked if I was now going to get a real job now that I have my Masters.  I told him that I already have a “real job.” I teach.  He just chuckled and I swear if we were in the same room he would’ve patted me on the head while doing so.  And I would’ve punched him in the eye.  While reciting Shakespeare.  Everything should be a learning experience, don’t you think?

You know what’s real about my world?  Real is teaching 12 hours a week but spending more than twice that time outside of class preparing lesson plans, reading articles on education and teaching, finding new and interesting books for the class to read and reading them myself, student conferences, student conferences, more student conferences, grading papers, making exams, etc. but only being paid for those 12 hours of class time.  The real world is watching budget cuts shrink class offerings, stipends for class necessities, scholarships for students, and faculty health care while raising the number of students per class and increasing administrative task work for the faculty. 

The real world is trying to teach the value of education and critical thinking to a generation of students that can’t hear you over the pop culture messages that tell them being young and beautiful will net them fancy cars, bling, and status and that there’s no such thing as life after thirty.  The real world is not an MTV show with tricked out condos in Miami, Philly, Paris, and Brooklyn — Wait! Is it?  Innernetz, are you holding out on me?  Are all of you living in luxury?  Bitches. 

I don’t care whether my students become sanitation workers, nurses, CEOs, or politicians. Well, I do care if they become politicians.  Al Franken’s teachers should be proud.  George Bush’s should not.  Then again, we teachers can only do so much.  What I do care about is that they learn how to think critically and analytically.  What I care about is that they don’t become selfish, self-absorbed, and senseless.  Because to fail in that regard perpetuates the mindset that has brought our economy, our society, and our government to the state that it is in today.  So fuck you, no, I don’t want the real world (although I wouldn’t mind an MTV condo).  I want to create a better one.  And you know what?  I need a degree to do it.

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