Despite all that scientific evidence to support me in the previous post, I'm starting to wonder if teaching is really what I'm supposed to be doing now. Don't get me wrong. I love teaching, but it just seems like it's going to continue to be too much of a stuggle to make a living at it here. I don't get paid enough to live on with what I make now and no one on the administrative side of things seems to think that what I do is worthy of a living wage. On the other hand, I have students who are so happy about the opportunity to learn a subject they see being useful to their plans for the future. The ones who care enough to volunteer to act to ensure that they will be able to continue their studies come to me and I get put in the position of telling them I'm so appreciative of their interest, but the reality is that we don't have much political clout or administrative support and I can hardly even promise that I'll be there next year, even though I want to be. As it stand now I could be teaching at the university in the mornings and working some crappy job at the mall for the remaining hours of the work day because I don't know how else to keep up with both the teaching and my bills. That is not a sustainable schedule and if it really comes down to that I think what I will have to do is end up disappointing my students so I can go do something completely unrelated to the skills I have spent my adult life and career attaining to be able to pay the bills.
The only other alternative would be to move away and teach someplace else, but I'm not moving. It took me 20 years to get back here and I plan to stay.
3 comments:
Tough one, Pam. What's the rest of your mood like?
Partially I feel like I'm lucky to be able to be doing something I love and I should focus on that and not worry too much about anything else. What I'm doing now completes the circle I started over 20 years ago. I went to the other side of the world and spent a lot of years learning another language and culture and now I'm back where I came from sharing that with young people who want to learn about it. That simple fact is incredible. Unfortunately, I have to pay the bills and the rent and that is not possible on what I'm paid now. I'm not such an idealist that I'm willing to live in poverty (or debt) to do this. So I start to feel frustrated and resentful and that takes away from the joy of teaching.
Those feelings are very understandable. I hope you can figure out a way to keep doing what you love and still have a living.
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