A long to-do list was swirling around in my head between 2 and 4 a.m. last night, and I got up on the early side and started to try to tackle at least some of it. I get stressed out every year around the beginning of the school year, even after 34 years of full time teaching. Each year has been pretty different for most of my career, which is remarkable in a field where I could just as well have signed on in a particular district, teaching at a particular school, teaching the same subject every year, and could be comfortably retiring, like, this year. As it is, I have taught for 10 different institutions over that time and have pretty much zero savings. Twice, I have drawn down on mandatory retirement funds in order to live. It's not been the most...strategic financial plan, lol.
The to-do breaks down into roughly four domains: school, home, career, and health.
School: prep for the first six weeks or so of classes (especially environmental science), prepare for orientation week (which includes a day long retreat with all of the juniors at the Marine Aquatic Center in Marina Del Rey, which should be fun, but it's kind of weighing on me).
Home: buy some new clothes, clean, do laundry, get groceries. It's amusing to me that my place got "Los Angeles dirty" while I was away for six weeks. Just the urban grime that gets in through the old building's old windows. Also included in home: a new windshield for the car, diagnostics on why it is needing about a quart of oil every 1500 miles, a new rear bumper, and a complete cleaning from my off road travels this summer.
Career: address extensive co-author comments on the last paper that will come out of my dissertation, format for publication, start putting together professional materials, start actively exploring job boards, post docs, etc.
Health: this may well be the most onerous. Make an appointment for a biopsy that is about a year overdue, make a follow up eye appointment for the left eye including a new prescription for glasses, make a dental appointment and lay out a plan for a bunch of dental work. I guess all of these things feel the most daunting what with the delta variant surge, not knowing how to navigate my UCLA benefits, not knowing how I am going to make the time within my teaching schedule. Also, related to health, is recovery, one of the top priorities for this year. Finding meetings, making a meeting schedule eventually, getting active in my recovery again. In addition, I want to get back into my body and start working out at least a couple times a week. So all of these considerations seem fairly daunting right now.
Speaking of teaching schedule, here's what my life will be like starting 8/30 and running roughly until mid-June, minus holidays:
I teach four sections in 14, 65 minute periods every week, with each period having between 18 and 20 students, with a total student load of 76. Our day starts at 9 and ends by 4, usually, so that is kind of nice (the late start is intentionally set that way for adolescents). I have two different classrooms. I teach two sections of 10th grade biology with a colleague who teaches the other three sections, and he has created the entire program, so prep is usually fairly minimal for biology, which is great in some ways. The other two classes I teach are inclusion model environmental science to 11th and 12th grade, with some students being on a regular track and others being on an advanced track during the same block, so each of those classes is sort of like two preps. I am building a brand new environmental science program for the school. Due to space restrictions, the environmental science classroom is not a lab, and doesn't have a sink or any other lab equipment, so it will be interesting running labs in there. The school where I work has a two week block rotation, and each of those weeks, there is one day where I teach four 65 minute classes in a row (there's a half hour lunch in there). Some days I teach at 9 and then not again until 2:30. One of the rotation weeks I have back to back classes at the end of the day on Friday, of 10th graders, until 3:45. I know in advance that is going to present a special challenge on those weeks. Full time faculty are also expected to be the advisor for two clubs and hold scheduled, 60-minute office hours, twice a week. The school has about 600 students enrolled in grades 6-12, and the current plan is to be in-person all day, every day. In addition to these assigned duties, we write narrative comments for each student twice a year, which are usually fairly detailed. These comments are in addition to regular grading periods.
There is nothing unusual about this kind of work load for secondary schools. It's a tad on the light side, actually. It's one of the reasons I wonder if I can keep doing secondary ed full time.
I realize adjuncts at the college level have even worse teaching loads, but often have less actual contact time and at least a little bit of flexibility for research, sometimes. Maybe not in many cases. The education field has been destroyed by neoliberal corporate minded assholes who are always nattering on about the bottom line, etc. The idea of an academic life has really been destroyed in many cases.
All of these considerations were really roiling around for me in the middle of the night, especially connected to all of the ways I feel I have had bad boundaries around my professional life in many ways, and "put up with" some shit that I ought not to have. I had a lot more perspective this morning, and it is not casting the long shadows it was in the night, which is typical.
The most fortunate thing of all is that I love teaching, and I love teaching science, and I usually love teaching teenagers. If this weren't the case, I would seriously be reconsidering my commitments.
❤️