Bad analogies explained by "Dilbert"

This Dilbert comic strip from a couple Sundays ago perfectly illustrates bad metaphors:

http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20060122.html

I'll be making copies and distributing it to all my comp classes.

Stupid Teacher Tricks

For those of you who've ever made a blunder in class and wondered how you'd ever live it down, or whether you'd ever get control of the class again, consider the poor fella in Lexington, KY who decided to show The 40-Year-Old Virgin to his high school Spanish class:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11089541/?GT1=7538
"Virgin" Movie Doesn't Translate for Education

According to this article, the teacher decided to show the movie "after a student brought it in and said it was very funny."

Educator's Rule No. 472: If a student suggests a movie for class viewing, take the suggestion with a grain of salt and a large margarita. At home, of course.

I'm assuming they were watching with the "Spanish subtitles" feature turned on.

One more Saturday night

Not a Grateful Dead reference...just my weekend. It's not a reference to Bill Walton's SIRIUS Radio show, either, although I do love the Big Redhead.

I used to feel sad if I found myself at home on a Saturday evening. No more. It's nice to be at home with nothing on the agenda. (And the nightclub scene is highly overrated--but that's for another post, another time.) I've been in my slippers and robe all day long, and I'm happy that way. With a schedule that's go!-go!-go!-go!-go! all week along, it sure is nice to sit on my butt, surf the web, cook a little, and relax.

I'm listening to A Prairie Home Companion on NPR, and they're broadcasting tonight's episode from Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN. That got me thinking about a graduate school encore and a Ph.D. Even though it snows in the winter in Indiana, maybe Purdue would be a great place to get a doctorate in English. After all, the Purdue University English Department's Writing Center has this wonderful website...

http://owl.english.purdue.edu

It's full of help, worksheets, practical writing advice, and other great links to help out students and instructors alike. Their worksheets on comma placement and apostrophes are pretty cool. They've saved me many, many times when I had to explain a particular concept in class but didn't know how to go about producing a worksheet filled with good example sentences that also explained the ideas clearly. Kudos to the English Department at Purdue!

Right now, in between postings and blog-tweakings, I'm putting together a worksheet for my composition students at D2U. I'm very glad to have mostly literature classes this semester, and teaching these two small sections of comp keeps me on my toes about deciding what's going into my fall comp classes. (I'm teaching lit-only courses this summer. Hooray!) So I'm trying to boil down what I know about writing that First Big Essay into a two- or three-page helpsheet for my students. I put together a fairly good one for my lit classes and their poetry essay. I'll probably post them for other English comp instructors to download and use when I've got them like I want them.

Here's to the happiness of staying home on Saturday night, cat in lap, cup of tea in hand, working on a comp helpsheet.

Spelling & Grammar Hall of Shame

My friends & family (and a few students) know that I love photos of poorly-worded or misspelled signs. I've been collecting these photos for a couple of years now, and as I slowly, sloooowly learn more about (X)HTML and JavaScript and blogging, I'm planning on putting up a gallery of these photos here on Educated and Poor just for your enjoyment: the Spelling & Grammar Hall of Shame, if you will. The inspiration for this came when I'd been teaching online English for a couple of years at Tiny Tech; I wanted to show students some examples of poorly-thought-out signs, but I didn't know how to put them up in BlackBoard and WebCT and make them easy for my students to access. (I'm still working on that. BlackBoard is fairly easy to learn and very intuitive; WebCT, on the other hand, seems to have been designed for use by anal-retentive Martians.) So I'm figuring out just how to put up one of these galleries for your snarky enjoyment. I was inspired by Sara at http://www.GoingJesus.com and her galleries of bad Christian-related figurines. (Her "Angels We Have Heard Are High" feature during Advent really made my Christmas season. Go check it out, if you haven't already.)

If you're out in the wild and see any badly-spelled signs (and especially in front of churches--oh, those are the best!), please snap a couple photos of them and send them along to me. I'll give you full credit for your pix and will put them up here with a smart-aleck caption.

In related news: as soon as I get myself a digital camera with close-up capabilities, I'm going to begin taking pix of (literally) small mistakes, like the one on the back of the All Free + Clear Laundry Detergent bottle in my mom's laundry room. On the back label, in 1/8"-high letters, it reads:

Its important to know you can count on your detergent.

Aaaaaaargh! Apostrophe error! Automatic ten-point deduction! So the makers of All Laundry Detergent (Reckitt & Benckiser, I think) will be among the first inductions into the S&GHOS.

The label made it all the way through production and into people's homes, and nobody caught that error. Until now, that is.

We don't need no education...We don't need no thought control

For you educators out there who just knew No Child Left Behind wasn't working, but couldn't quite put your finger on how...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5134827
NPR: "No Child Left Behind Fails to Close Achievement Gap" (Jan. 8, 2006)

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5034973
NPR: "Poor Report Card for No Child Left Behind" (Dec. 1, 2005). Includes Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) files of 2005 "report cards" for urban U.S. students in reading and math.

http://www.courant.com/news/education/hc-nochild0118.artjan18,0,3301168.story
Hartford Courant: "Many School Boards Back 'No Child' Suit" (Jan. 18, 2006)

http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2006/
01/19/spellings_not_subtle_about_change_in_tone/ (copy entire address into browser)
Boston Globe: "Spellings Not Subtle about Change in Tone" (Jan. 19, 2006). Article on Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings and her "softer, gentler" change in tone on enforcing NCLB

http://www.ncte.org/about/issues/action/ncteissues/120175.htm?source=gs
National Council of Teachers of English: "Status on Implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act" (no date)

http://www.blackvoicenews.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=3945&
amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;
mode=thread&order=0&thold=0 (copy this entire web address into browser) The Black Voice News: "D's and F's for 'No Child Left Behind'" (Dec. 14, 2005)

A passing score on a standardized test doesn't mean "smart." A lot more goes into teaching than just getting kids ready for the next state or national test! The problem is that non-educators are making education policy. Like the bumper sticker says: Too bad that the people who really know how to run the country are busy teaching school!

I bet there'll even be rumors runnin' around on Judgment Day

Back in October 2005, I got a call from the Office of the Dean of Academic Affairs at Tiny Tech. The Dean wanted writing samples from three of my former (online) students, all of whom were local firefighters and enrolled in Tiny Tech's Fire Science program for advanced certificates. So I dug around in my online files, found a couple of noteworthy things, and e-mailed them to the Dean's Office. But then I started getting suspicious. Was I in trouble? Had I done something wrong? The Dean's admin assistant told me that she wasn't at liberty to tell me about the situation, but that it had nothing to do with my teaching. So I was relieved and thought no more of it.

Today, I was out running errands when I saw the latest edition of our local newspaper. Lo and behold, on the front page:

Fire Instructor Reprimanded in Cheating Probe
Educator Put on Probation, Loses Deanship

A Tiny Technical College instructor who allegedly allowed [our little town's] firefighters to cheat on coursework is keeping his job. S---- will remain lead Fire Science instructor at TTC, but he has been demoted from the dean of the college's Public Services Division and must serve a one -year probation. ...In October, police launched an investigation into reports of city firefighters cheating on college courses after former and current firefighters brought the allegations forward. Police interviewed several firefighters who said S---- presided over the courses and routinely left the room during testing while another firefighter called out answers. Three firefighers also passed lie-detector tests regarding S----'s involvement. S---- refused a polygraph. ... The seven-week probe ended with five firefighters either resigning or retiring to avoid termination. Three others were suspended without pay.

This makes me ill. Dozens of firefighters have taken my online English courses at TTC over the last few years; I can't help wondering how many cheated. How many had someone else write their essays? While firefighters and police officers are generally good writers due to the on-the-job report writing they have to do every day, it crossed my mind (albeit briefly) that it might not be pure coincidence. Ugh.

I guess this makes an excellent case for our college to subscribe to http://www.TurnItIn.com, which is one of the leading online anti-plagiarism websites. We use it at D2U, and it's cut our plagiarism cases by 90% over the last year.

Stay tuned.

P.S. "Judgment" can also be spelled "judgement"--both are acceptable, according to my copy of The American Heritage Dictionary. So there.

Everybody's workin' for the weekend

It's usually during my weekends that I realize just how much crap I have to do, and how tired I am. My week is spent teaching class after class, finishing up at one campus and then zooming off to another, answering dozens of e-mails a day...and, of course, I'm tired at the end of each weekday. But it really all catches up with me on weekends, when I don't have to be anywhere at any certain time. Yesterday (Saturday), I went out once: to the bank at 11:45am, just before it closed. The rest of the day I spent lying in bed and snoozing. And I even went to bed at 11pm, after having slept all day. I was that tired. Whew!

Sunday is usually when reality also starts creeping back in. Today is Laundry Day--since my washing machine is out of order until I can save up the $$$ to get it fixed, I'll be going to my mom's house to wash clothes. I'll also be thinking up topics for my D2U comp and lit classes. I'm doing a portfolio system this semester, which (I hope) will encourage my students to think about revision, lots of revision. I got an astounding number of poorly-thought-out, written-at-the-last-minute essays last semester, and (try as I might) I couldn't seem to get my students to see the value of taking the time to do the paper right by going through several drafts before turning it in and by visiting our Writing Center for help. A fellow instructor showed me a few of her students' portfolios when she used this intense-revision system, and I was impressed. I decided to try it with my classes. It has to be better than the approach I've been taking all these years.

So my fingers are crossed. We shall see!

Do I need a computer for this online class?

Tuesday and Thursday are the days I "work from home." I put that in quotation marks because that's often not what I actually do; I may have to make a trip to any one of my three campuses to take care of photocopies or scan or clean out my nasty office or talk with my supervisor(s) instead of staying home to save gas, grade, and plan.

Late this afternoon, I'll be going down to SBCC (about 35 minutes away) for a mandatory, one-time-only meeting of my English 101 Online class. I've been doing online English courses for three years now, and I've yet to work out all the bugs. So I figured that one way to work out any user bugs would be to have a mandatory meeting at the beginning of the semester so I could explain to all my online students (whom I rarely, if ever, meet) just how WebCT works and how to get your username and password to work. My roster shows me that there are 25 people signed up for the class; so far I've heard from 17. I'll wager that the eight who haven't contacted me are probably still thinking that they can do the online class via osmosis.

There are also students e-mailing to ask whether they can skip the mandatory meeting. Umm...no. If it says MANDATORY MEETING next to the class listing in the Bulletin, then don't you think that means you have to be there? Ugh. Next thing they'll want to know is whether they still get full credit for not doing their Discussion Board postings each week. You'd really be surprised at the number of students who expect full credit for assignments they don't do.

I guess I'll know around 8pm whether the meeting-in-person thing works worth a crap. One of my biggest pet peeves is being called "she" and "her" on the Discussion Board, and I hope to nip this in the bud at the meeting. "What does she want us to do for this paper?" "Is she in her office?" "I haven't heard from her." Hey--I have a name, and I can read every single post you put up! I've thought of calling students "they" or "turdknockers" or something like that when they start referring to me as "she." Something about that computer between us and other people makes us forget that others can see what we post.

"Do I need a computer for this online class?" Yes, people really do ask this.

Welcome to Educated and Poor

I'm new at the blogging thing, but I just couldn't resist the glamour. Or not.

I've been reading a few excellent blogs over the last six months and have been inspired to tell my own story (or stories). Sara at www.GoingJesus.com and Mario at www.stuffonmycat.com have such awesome sites that make me laugh (and ponder life's meaning) every day, so it's their fault I got started. Please go see their great sites and tell them they rock. Because they do.

I make my living as a part-time college English professor...which is nowhere as easy as it sounds. This is my blog.

The current economic climate in the U.S. makes it easy to get hired at a college or university--everyone's going back to school these days because they either 1) got laid off, 2) got downsized, or 3) know they're about to get laid off or downsized and want to add extra skills to their resume. All these extra students need thousands of extra instructors to teach extra courses in everything from math to English to Special Ed to...you name it. So the part-time (adjunct) job opportunities are out there, and there are a lot of them. But while many colleges are hiring instructors, few of them are full-time. Think about it like outsourcing, except in higher education. Why pay someone in small-town Georgia $9/hour (plus benefits, overtime, etc.) to make your product in a factory when you can get someone in Mexico to make the same product for less than half that (without benefits, overtime, etc.)? Similarly, why should a university pay a full-time professor with a Ph.D. a full salary and benefits when you can get someone with an MA--someone who's just as qualified as the person with the Ph.D.--for less than half that? It's great for colleges' bottom lines...not so great for people like me.

Don't get me wrong. I'm very, very glad to have a job. But it takes three of them to make a decent living! You read correctly: three jobs.

I currently work part-time at three different colleges. This is what it takes to put food on the table, to pay the bills...to make under $30K/yr. How many people do you know with a Master's degree who have to work three jobs?

I teach five courses at D2U ("Division II University," which is what I'll call my main employer), two online courses at TTC ("Tiny Technical College"), and two courses at SBCC ("Small 'Bama Community College"). My students range in age from 18 (true freshmen) to 55+ (returning to school after many years). Many of these students seem to think that I have nothing better to do than to make their lives an English grammar Hell, but very few realize that I am employed full-time at none of the three places where I work.

So why don't you quit and do something else? I hear you asking. If you're not happy, why keep on doing what you're doing? As soon as I win the lottery, or find a Sugar Daddy who'll pay all my bills while I go back to school full-time for a Ph.D., or ______ [fill in the blank], I'll do just that.

But, you know...most of the time, I like what I do, even though it means 12-hour days sometimes, or piles and piles of papers most of the time. And that's the funny thing about teaching at any level: most of us teachers really like what we do.

I hope to educate my readers a little on what the life of an adjunct English instructor is like. For those of you who are also adjuncts, perhaps you can find a little community on here.

Happy Reading!