New Job Second Thoughts

I’m getting ready to teach my first class at my new college on Monday. And for the first time since moving here, I’ve been hit with a twang of disappointment, bordering on wondering if I’ve made a mistake, career-wise.

Sure, there are some great benefits to this new school, and I know that over the years, I will have opportunities here to develop myself as a teacher that I did not have at my old school. There are education classes offered for teachers right through the college, and I’m interested in taking each and every one of them. There is support for faculty here to continue their education and to be involved in staff development. There is a teaching learning center here that supports instructional innovation and will assist teachers in developing new direction for old assignments in their classes. In all, that seems great.

Of course, there’s also the extracurriculars going on throughout the year – speakers, events, workshops – both here on the campus and in the surrounding communities. Okay, I tell myself, this is all good. So what went “wrong” to cause my wave of second thoughts?

I went and looked at my classrooms. The first word that came to mind: ghetto.

I’m in classrooms with old-style desks – one with the kind of chairs with the desks attached, another with chairs that look as though they were second-hand from some elementary school, with those crappy faux wood-top tables with brown metal supports – retro, I suppose, if I wanted to see it in some positive vein.

Chalkboards. Chalkboards? What top-notch college uses chalkboards anymore? And I saw no chalk on the holders, so I know there’s going to be a supplies issue with this already. An overhead in one room, nothing electronic in the other, and the third, I couldn’t even get into, nor look into because of the green tape over the window. What the heck is that all about?

So, I go from a school where I had a computer projector in my classroom for everyday use, to feeling as though I’ve been thrown back in time about 15 years.

And it’s not just that. I have no lit classes, and no hope that any will come anytime soon. I say it doesn’t matter, but the distinction between faculty is clear here – those who have and those who have not. I’ve even been in conversations where I feel as though I’ve been ignored by my colleagues because I don’t have lit classes – how could I possibly have anything to say about literature? Or how could I even be considered a writer if I don’t have an MFA and a creative writing class to teach?

I left a school where I had three lit classes a year, and had developed a fourth. I was teaching online and in the classroom, I had technology at my fingertips on a daily basis, I organized and was asked to read at public readings. So, can you understand this feeling of, “What have I done?”

I told myself I could do this. I could give up the lit and sit at the bottom of the pond and enjoy what I got. I have to just remind myself of that. I have to just remind myself that I can teach with nothing more than pencil and paper. And I suppose it’s going to be this first term that is the practical reminder of my roots. It’s just going to be frustrating at first, and I also fear it may be harder for me later to be able to go back to the techniques I used to use – computers and other electronic aids – like some kind of yo-yo that gets its string twisted and can’t bounce back up as quickly, or at all.