My Life in the Art World - The Teaching Job

Teachers are the topic of budget-cut discussions these days, taking the fall for so many other problems that have truly led to the current financial crisis. Public schools are certainly suffering because of overworked teachers, crowded classrooms, and the emphasis on teaching for tests. The incentive for talented young people to become educators is diminishing. How sad. Looking broadly at the problems we face as a species it seems that educating more of us about our history, the environment, over population, and war could help us decide to live differently. But the education process has to be valued, by both the leaders of state and the general population. It is difficult to hear the political discourse about the danger of the educated elite. Perhaps if everyone had the same access to information, knowledge, and opportunity we would have a more level playing field and a world population working together to improve our condition on this planet.

I decided to leave my part time college teaching job this past December after fifteen years. This state run, partially privatized school changed a lot over the years. Initially I had classes of 9 - 12 students for three hour sessions and could have two classes a day with ample time in between to see students during my office hours. My class last semester had 18 students and was 5 1/2 hours long. Budget cuts led to fewer and larger classes, more adjunct faculty (paid half of the full time salary rate, no benefits), bigger classes, less time for one on one contact. The amount of outside class time increased two-fold with the additional planning & grading required. The pay did not. I love teaching, working with subject matter I had a passion for and mentoring young people - some with a similar passion. The drain of the situation and the very limited appreciation of the institution led to my decision to leave.

Back to the bigger picture.. The complex threads of this topic are wide-ranging, but it seems to boil down to priorities and fairness. How can we reassign our resources and channel more into building an educated, intelligent, productive world population who can live together in peace and work collectively to maintain quality lives for everyone? Maybe it begins with valuing the people who chose to be educators.