Showing posts with label Education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Education. Show all posts

Monday, May 2, 2016

Working as Adjunct Faculty

As adjunct faculty for two Adult Education programs, I worry every semester whether or not I will have enough classes to pay my portion of the bills.  Living in a state with no budget, that fear has intensified.  Each semester I patiently wait to see when, where, and what I will be teaching and then cross my fingers that I have enough students to keep my class for the semester. I also do this with absolutely no benefits.  As adjunct, I am always considered part-time.


Why have I put myself through this torture roughly every 16 weeks for 15 years? The answer is simple: I absolutely LOVE my job. There is an energy to being on a campus full of students ready to make dreams come true. After all these years, I still feel excited when students begin walking through the door. There is nothing better than to be in the middle of teaching a tough topic and see the spark in a student's eye that tells me he/she gets it!  A student recently said, "You make reading books interesting." For many of my pre-GED students, they have read their first book ever with me. In one of my ESL classes, I currently have 26 students who come from 12 different countries.  Some evenings I sit in awe as they work together on assignments.  Language and culture are not an issue.


As a long-time teacher in the same building, I have seen students come and go.  Work, family, health, etc have taken them away.  My job is to give them a purpose to come back.  Because of language barriers, previous bad school experiences or lack of an education, self esteem, and many more reasons, my students fear their first time back in the classroom.  Are they good enough? Will they look foolish?  Will their weaknesses be exposed?  My challenge is always to calm those fears and to find quickly where their strengths are so we can build on those.      


Why do I keep doing the job I do when I could have the security of my own benefits rather than relying on my husband to secure them?  Why do I plan everything around the hours I am given at school because if I take off work I won't be paid?  It's because whatever small part I can play in making the lives of others better, in helping them reach their personal goals, or hearing for the first time that they are good at something school related, it is worth everything else.

Friday, March 18, 2016

Will Unscholing Create Successful Adults?

Four years ago my family became a public school family. My daughter, who thrives on experiencing life, started school for the first time as a full-time freshman to get the full high school experience. My son opted to keep his "homeschool" status while taking a few electives his junior and senior year. We found our local high school very open to my children and first year parent teacher conferences revealed that my children's teachers had no idea they had not only been homeschooled, but allowed the freedom to learn on their own through unschooling.

As I finish editing a paper for my son's college mass communications class and look for photos to share with my daughter's school for senior celebration coming up in April, I can't help but reflect on some questions I asked myself when my son was three years old,

  • Will my kids be successful in life if we unschool?
  • Will they be happy as adults?
My answer to both questions: ABSOLUTELY.  Did they encounter some struggles in high school? Definitely. But struggles are good. They challenge you to become a better you. Plus, what high school student doesn't have a struggle or two? As I look at my almost adult children, I see two people who are thinkers. They are both capable of figuring out the circumstances they are in and making the best of it. They don't follow what teachers, peers, or even their parents think is best for them. They have an internal ability to know what is best for themselves and they are ALWAYS right. It might not seem that way at the time, but each experience they have had, good or bad, has lead them to exactly where they need to be next in life. When I think about their futures as adults, I get excited. I see both of them working jobs that challenge them and give back to the world rather than focusing on money or power. They are both grounded and for teenagers, quite aware of their value systems. To me, that is a success!

As children, my husband and I placed trust in our children to know when it was time to stop playing a video game, when it was their time to learn to read, how and why they needed to learn math, and when they needed time alone. We respected them as humans who knew their physical and mental bodies well.  As much as possible, we left our agendas at the door so that they could figure out who they are as people.  The benefits are even more amazing than I could have imagined all those years ago when I first read about the concept of unschooling and felt like I had finally found the missing piece to how I felt about learning. As their momma, I feel so honored knowing they are on their journeys to making this world a better place to live by sharing their unique talents, thoughts, and abilities.