Still Doing My Job

It's getting harder every day. 

I have been working really hard to keep my students and their needs uppermost in my mind--none of what is going on at the capital is their fault, and I owe it to them to do my job to the best of my ability.

The problem is, the best of my ability is sliding back--I'm not sleeping well, and today I had a terrible parietal headache that came on during our campus meeting over the noon hour, which meant that I had to cancel my afternoon class and come home to sleep with my head on a heating pad. 

The mess in Madison has only gotten worse--we are locked out of the Capitol, the Governor's budget for the biennium is so fucked up I can't even bring myself to write about it right now, and my thoughts are swirling around at a pace that makes it difficult to sleep through the night.

I'm behind in my grading. I have to get caught up because my composition students need their papers back before they hand in another big assignment so that they can see where they need to make changes to improve the paper they're about to hand in. I'm behind in my grading (and I haven't been blogging as much as I've wanted to) because I have "tennis elbow" from an injury incurred the week before Christmas (not from playing tennis, sadly), and it's not healing because I write and type and use a mouse every day for my job. I can only do so much before the pain is unbearable and I have to stop. Just typing this little bit is causing a flare-up. FML.

I am also having a crisis. I don't know if it's a mid-life crisis, but since I'm going to be 40 soon, maybe it is.

I have spent my entire adult life working to become a professor. I took a detour into corporate America, lured by the big salary and the easy work, but it was soul-killing to think I'd incurred $70K in student loan debt and wasn't doing the work I'd borrowed all that money to do--the work I'd felt called to do: teach. Never mind the fact that said corporate job was the only time in my life I wasn't carrying credit card debt and was actually able to make substantial payments on my student loans. Hubby and I paid for our own wedding (and kept it under $5K) because of my job.

After 9 years of work as an adjunct (low-paid but man, I loved teaching) I finally got a TT position at a campus I was happy to call my new home--great colleagues in the department and on campus (except for the dean, who was a douche of the first order) and I settled in and worked my ass off to get tenure. And not just to get tenure--to make the campus better, to help the students more, to encourage engagement with ideas beyond the classroom. I. loved. my. job. Every day was a new opportunity to talk about things I was interested in with people who were also interested in those things. I'd never felt so good (and truthfully, so stressed--but the stress came from loving the job to the point that I didn't know what I would do if I didn't get tenure).

I still love my job. But I don't know if I can love it much longer at the expense of my family, and my hopes for the future. 

I have been teaching for 15 years, and my salary is $44,500/year (so take-home is approx. $32,000). Like most of my colleagues, I work unpaid over the summer on course prep and professional development (writing). Every spring comes the cutting back--to save for the summer months I won't receive a paycheck. June 1 is the last time I see any money until October 1. September is the worst month because I have to start paying for daycare (in mid-August) before I have any money coming in to pay for it. Hubby's salary is less than mine, but since he works a lot of overtime in the summer, we're almost able to make it without resorting to credit cards to buy food. I think this summer I might have to get a third-shift job, because if my pension and health care contributions are taken out (as they always are) in June, this year the cost will be staggering (4 months' worth out of the June check to continue coverage over the summer) if the governor's budget repair bill is passed.


Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if I wasn't being vilified by the Republicans in this state as one of the "haves" simply because I have decent benefits. Benefits which make up some of the gap in pay (but not all of it) between what I earn as a public servant and what I might earn in the private sector. 


So many people do not understand what it takes to be a teacher (at any level)--what kind of dedication to the betterment of others is required of a person who wants to teach. Teachers do not go into their profession to get rich. We don't go into it for "summers off"--I don't know anyone who truly has the summer off--and we certainly don't go into it expecting people to kick us in the stomach. The New York Times today has an article whose focus is mainly secondary ed, but the same applies to post-secondary educators as well--we are scorned. 

I have already taken a 5% pay cut and an increase in my class sizes, and continued to do my job to the best of my ability, but my smile is slipping.


Why am I doing this? I need to teach, but I need to provide for my family. I never expected to be rich being a teacher, but I thought I would be able to have a good, middle-class life. Not so much. Don't own the house we live in (which only has 2 bedrooms so the Things are currently sharing). Don't go on vacations (not even to celebrate milestones this year like being married for 10 years or finally getting tenure after 20 years' worth of striving).  At the rate I'm going, I cannot save for my own retirement, much less the Things' college educations. I feel like a failure on so many levels.


I love teaching. I love feeling like I make a difference every day. But knowing that the people of this state don't value the job I work so hard to do well makes it really fucking hard to get up and keep doing it.


OK. My elbow is sending shooting pain down my arm to my hand. Time to call it a night, because I have to get up and grade papers, journals, and posts tomorrow.

Protest Poem (revised)

I am (not)

I am not a union member

I am a taxpayer

I am not a public enemy

I am a professional educator

I am not a free-loader

I am a hard-working employee of the State

I am not a moron

I am a person who teaches kids how to think critically as they emerge into adulthood

I am not a slacker

I am a person who works nights + weekends beyond the 40 hours a week I spend on campus for the low low bargain price of $44,500

I am not a “have”

I am a person who took on debt to the tune of $70,000 for the chance to become a professor

I am not a home-owner

I am a renter because I cannot afford a mortgage (see salary and debt above)

I am not a leech

I am a consumer in the Wisconsin economy who will have less money to spend because of this bill

I am not a supporter of this grotesque abrogation of workers’ rights

I am someone marching in Madison and raising a voice in the Rotunda

I am not a thug

I am an unarmed citizen of a democracy exercising my right to free speech and redress of grievances

I am not the problem

I am part of the solution if only You would listen

On, Wisconsin!

Another foot of snow fell yesterday and overnight, but that's not what this post is about.

Instead,it's about my response to the grotesque abrogation of workers' rights that Governor Scott Walker has proposed as a "fix" for Wisconsin's budget deficit. I don't want to expound on the bill itself (it's been done in other places: try Digby over at Hullabaloo for a really succinct version of what's led up to this point). See also Paul Krugman's opinion piece "Wisconsin Power Play" in today's New York Times.

Last Wednesday, I traveled to Madison to join in the protest, along with 30,000 of my close personal friends. It was amazing--so much positive, peaceful energy and a sense of common purpose drew people from all walks of life: teachers and pipefitters, nurses and firefighters (yes, even though the firefighters are exempt).

The American Federation of Teachers rep had arranged for a group of us to meet with our State Senator, He-Who-Shall-Remain-Nameless. After several minutes of conflicting information updates, one of his Minions appeared. (It turned out that the Senators were caucusing off-site--out of fear of confrontation?) Four people were selected to speak (I was one of them). First went the Prof from the school just up the highway. Then I went.

The Minion looked like he'd rather be drinking bleach than listening to what I had to say:

• The attack on collective bargaining does not solve the budget problem or create jobs.
• This bill will make us even less competitive for quality professors than we are now (after 4 failed searches for a World Languages position, we finally found someone; now we've got the third Comm/Arts search in as many years). California may have some of the same problems, but at least it's got better weather.
• Students have already told me that they are going to leave WI and take their brains and their earning power with them. Why would anyone want to be a teacher or nurse or corrections officer in this state if this is how we are going to be treated?

I finally had to tell the guy, "Write this down" because he was just sitting there. He kept reiterating that we have a $137 milllion shortfall, and this will fix it. Dumbass. Thanks for listening. We left the meeting angrier than we were when we got there.

I wish I had known what was reported in the Cap Times later that day--that the missing $137 million mysteriously happened right after Walker took office ( as of 1/31 the state was projected to have a balance of $121 million)--coinciding with $140 million in special interest spending he has approved in his first 6 weeks in office. This is not about balancing the budget--it's union busting, pure and simple. And both sides know it.

I do not mind paying a fair share. Neither does anyone I work with. However, we have been paying more than our fair share for a lot longer than is being reported by the mainstream media (on top of below-average salaries, our 2% raise that went POOF in the last biennial budget, along with a 3% reduction in pay that was categorized as "furlough" even though it was basically a giveback since most of my colleagues work 6 or 7 days a week anyway). And we do mind being professors on food stamps (at least 3 of my colleagues are the sole income for their families, and because our salaries are so low in the first place, they will qualify). 

I am OK for now--Hubby makes less than I do but we don't own a home, so our expenses can be managed (and we're mobile. Going back to Chicago looks pretty good right about now). Thing Two is now two, so his daycare isn't quite as expensive as it was before--but between his daycare expenses and my student loan payments, 1/3 of my take-home pay is gone every single month ($3600/mo for 9 mos = $32,400 in take-home. I owe $75,000 on my student loan debt, debt that I incurred for the express purpose of becoming a professor). I am seriously rethinking living in this state if this is how it wants to treat its public sector workers...and I'm not the only one.

At this point, despite the heartening daily increase in the number of protesters, I am not hopeful for a positive outcome. The Governor stubbornly refuses to even sit down with the representatives of public sector unions to discuss the issues, and he's confident that his bill will pass in spite of the 70,000 people protesting in Madison on an daily basis (70K on Saturday, anyway). 

My colleagues and I love our jobs--we love our students and we love helping them learn--but there has to be a limit to what we're expected to give. And after spending my entire adult life working towards tenure, I am forced to consider leaving a state I have come to love--because it's turning into a state I cannot love. It will not be a no-fault divorce--the blame will lie squarely with those voters whose values don't include a willingness to pay for quality education, or quality services period. They will get the state they're asking for, and I sure as hell don't want to live in it.