At the front of another classroom
It's Monday. It's dark and rainy. It's not cold yet; Ohio doesn't seem to get wintry until November. But it's still generally yucky.
I'm in the antiquated faculty office I share with a bunch of other adjunct professors at Ohio Dominican University. I started teaching one course (U.S. history to 1877) here about a month ago. I like it. The campus is tiny. There are only two full-time history professors, so they rely a lot on adjuncts to fill out their course offerings. So, unfortunately, this school is one of the pioneers in modern secondary education, where administrators realize they can collect a stable of desperate Ph.Ds, pay them about 5% of the salary of a full-time professor, and still get bodies in front of the classroom. I realize I am contributing to this problem by agreeing to be one of those adjuncts, but I am hoping this will keep me in the game long enough to find a real teaching job. I'm still working full time answering phones at an insurance company (I would have to scrounge together 17 courses per year to replace that salary, so I can't give that up just yet), and this gives me an outlet for my academic interests.
Today the full-timer I work with said they will probably have a one-class teaching spot for me next semester if I'm interested. It'll be the second half of the American survey at the same time (8am). I told her I'm interested. We'll see where it goes.
Teaching at 8am is hard. That probably seems obvious. I'm half asleep. The students are at least half asleep; some of them are completely asleep. My work schedule at the other job got pushed back to 11am-7:30pm, so I don't get to see Kidlet in the evenings (this is easily the hardest part). I leave the house at 7:15am and don't get home til 8pm. Makes for a long day.
But I like teaching the class. I hadn't taught since spring quarter of 2010 and I missed it. [I applied for a trainer position at the insurance company, which would have better used some of the skills, but got shot down last week (which I'm kinda bitter about but I'm taking deep breaths and letting it go).] Many of the sleepy students don't do the assigned reading, but that's not new. Some of them are awake and paying attention. Some of them care about their grades. Some of them even contribute to class discussions. Those are my favorites.
Today we got through the Revolutionary War. Next week is the first midterm. Then, finally, we get to the nineteenth century, when things get interesting. The colonial era does not interest me much, and that might contribute to the general sleepiness of the classroom. But I always perk up after the midterm, when I get to rant about Andrew Jackson, the Slave Power Conspiracy, westward expansion, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. Hopefully the students will perk up too.