I do not work very much in the fields I studied, so a lot of what I have done since I got my degree is acquire expertise in fields I did not have. I have very broad expertise now and a flexibility in upper division teaching that is nothing short of amazing, and I say this objectively. However, I have not yet acquired all of the teaching skills I need, which would correspond (or would have corresponded at one time) to middle and high school kinds of teaching, and in some cases elementary school teaching (i.e. reading, arithmetic). I may acquire some of these over this summer.
Some of the people with whom I went to graduate school did not want to leave the area and became instructors and adjuncts. In these jobs they acquired the teaching skills I do not want to need, but need. They disapproved of other members of our cohort who left jobs like mine to go into business, government, law, and medicine because, as they said, they lacked the necessary skills and interests for these jobs and, given their other interests and their desire for geographical flexibility, thought it best to move on.
“I do not have the training I would need for the kind of job I had,” they would say over drinks at the MLA, when we visited them in their new cities as they visited our old conference. “How arrogant of you to say that!” the adjuncts and instructors would exclaim. “Just having a good PhD does not make you too good to…”. I would keep my thoughts to myself and feel ashamed because I, too, aspired to move up or jump ship, and I knew this meant I Wasn’t Serious. Because were I Serious, I would be able to Handle Anything. I neglected to notice that the excoriators were people who had not even been willing to leave our home city or state. They did as they wished.
My happiest colleagues are people who moved up from high school teaching, or over from first careers they had hated, or down from the snow they could no longer face. That is to say that they made positive choices, not motivated by shame or guilt. But in my program, it seems to me that we were menaced a great deal. “If you were Serious, you would…” … “Who do you think you are, to believe you might aspire to apply…” … and on, and on.
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But I suppose the difference between those instructors and adjuncts and me is, I was more than willing to do something, anything, rather than join the pool. I am glad about that. The only people it seemed to serve well were the few wives of men with good jobs in other fields who did not depend upon their own salaries entirely. They then published and taught as they pleased, wore beautiful clothes and lived in nice houses; had summers in France and things like this and were relaxed, kind, friendly.
And I wonder to what extent my graduate program was in fact designed, intentionally or not, to create this kind of worker. Most of the fellowships went to men, and those men tended to get jobs; most women taught up a storm and many went to adjuncting. I taught in three departments, sometimes two at once — as I have done since. And it was out of fear that we would be relegated to the adjunct pool that we were told not to spend very much time or energy on teaching.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 