Postcards from the Funny Farm

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Community College classes are like a soiree to the professor. Think about it: 30-40 people are there after paying to come and they have come strictly to see you, the teacher. It’s a situation that is hard to understand unless you’ve had the experience. The “soiree” analogy was accurate for me when I taught college. In 1999 at age 29 I applied for and was granted an adjunct faculty position at a local college in Southern California. I taught two sessions of late afternoon English composition courses. These were critical thinking/writing courses and they covered controversial issues as a mainstay requirement (death penalty, abortion, euthanasia . . .). The two classes I taught were amazing and taught me just as much about people and writing as I was expected to teach the students. It was a blast that left me forever for the better changed.

There’s something very special about people taking time out of their day/night to open themselves to learning. I really felt like I helped people WHO WANTED HELP to be better writers and that was more golden than a paycheck. Of course at the time I was also a High School teacher about 20 minutes away in the day and the double tax on my resources proved quite impossible. It is possible to land a full-time benefits position with community college as a Master of Arts but it is very rare and they have to be really short on applicants. For that reason I had to let the college gig go and focus my energies 100% on teaching at a public high school. Still a captive audience but the kids are somewhat “imprisoned.” There are a few who want to learn but for the most part . . . you’re running uphill and you better learn to like it. Some things just never change. That doesn’t mean you give up as a high school teacher. Your career should be a record of trying new approaches to youth until you make that connection and bring them up to loving writing. It really is something they can learn to like!

But this post is about the college I taught. Watching my classes as I would lecture on Stunk & White’s Elements of Style or Linda Flower’s studies on how through writing: we learn, I’d see them writing notes and hear their questions and realize that the best party in life is the interchange of ideas. This is true whether it be in classroom, at a soiree, on a blog, or maybe somewhere metaphorically in life that combines them all. I guess that’s where I try and live my life. Blogging and reading blogs sometimes feels like that for me.