Burnout

When I was in my third year of graduate school – for the PhD – I taught my first class. I remember the anxiety about the upcoming semester, but not because of the material the class would cover: the anxiety was about finding adequate childcare for my nine-month-old daughter. The class was logic, and (after an intense bit of work when I was an undergraduate) it comes natural to me. I taught, oh, maybe three or four courses in New Orleans. I have my stories: about Junior and her bell, and the day she came to class with a pierced tongue, or the day I failed to wear shoes to class and was put on the spot about it by a young woman wearing pajamas.  And there was “Failure Boy.” Who could forget Failure Boy. Overall, I enjoyed teaching.

I moved to Roanoke, Virginia in the summer of… damn, I’m old. Anyhow, I was contacted by a (relatively) local community college, and was happy to gain the additional teaching experience. I asked a lot of the students, and got a lot back. I have a few good memories from teaching there, although a few not-so-good ones, including an absolutely scathing student evaluation from the best student I had that semester, who apparently was unaware that is was a community college and most of the students were barely keeping up with my (to her, plodding) lectures.

I had mixed feelings about the spring of 1999: I had hoped to knock out a large chunk of my dissertation, and instead got additional offers to teach. I thought, how could I turn these down? (In retrospect, “No thank you,” comes to mind.) I was frustrated by the students at the college where I taught the most classes that semester, who really didn’t understand what I was trying to get at with the whole “philosophy” thing. (Also, I used a textbook that I ended up really not liking, and never used again. And I started doing shots of Irish whiskey before my 8AM class, which probably didn’t help.) That semester did not end well.

However, once I got through the summer, I managed to find a balance of teaching and writing that worked: I enjoyed teaching on the days I taught, and spent the rest of my time (more or less) researching and writing and editing like a fiend. I was (again, more or less) supporting myself with something that I grew to enjoy: I say that because I was surprised to enjoy teaching at all. I assumed that it would be the necessarily chore in order to make researching and writing possible (as it is for some professors) – but I liked the interaction with the students, liked watching the light bulbs go on in their heads.

At the same time, I sent out dozens of CVs, applied for every job I thought was reasonable. Two years in a row. At the end of the two years (first while ABD, about to finish, the second right after I’d finished) I got approximately zero interviews. (No, make that “exactly.”) That was discouraging. The advice from the graduate student coordinator seemed sound – publish an article! – but didn’t work in practice: I did what research I could, wrote several things up and submitted them, but nothing quite worked. Perhaps I was too ambitious in my topics, or… hell, I don’t know. I just know that I got back a number of rejection letters, and never have published an article in a peer-reviewed journal, and that, in a nutshell, is why I don’t have a full-time job.

I still enjoyed teaching, though. One of the other adjuncts at Large State University survived just on his modest adjunct salary, and seemed happy. I couldn’t quite swing it, though, and there came a point (just after Easter, 2001) where the schedule for teaching didn’t work for me (there’s a much larger story there that I’ve either told before, or will have to wait for another time). At that point, for the first time, I confronted the possibility of not teaching again: just over one year after getting my PhD, and it felt like I was done.

Of course I wasn’t. I got one course for the fall, and then two for the following spring.  At that point – the end of classes in May of 2002 – I did not have a grieving period over the “end” of my teaching career, but it would have been appropriate in some respects: it was without a doubt the best semester I’ve ever had, and I didn’t teach again for another three years. I would have been a good note to go out on.

There’s another job in there, but we skip forward to seminary in a town with few jobs – but a college that needs philosophy courses taught. I was there on-and-off for four years, and I started my blog while I was there (so I know I’ve written at least a bit about that). As my book approached publication, I assumed that I would get a full-time teaching position, and I would have a new life. That didn’t happen (obviously) but it didn’t occur to me quite yet that I wouldn’t teach again. And of course, I did: I got a class in the spring that was relatively uneventful, and a summer class that was okay except for all the cheating at the end which left an extraordinarily bad taste in my mouth – and that’s when I thought, for the first time in seven years, “now I’m really done.”

A few moves later, and I was teaching again. I mostly enjoyed it, although the commute was brutal and the classes were too large; then more teaching opportunities, with mixed results. ("You need to read past page 26 of the book!") Again, more seriously, thought I was done, and even turned down additional classes at all three colleges I was teaching at in the spring of 2011, on the assumption that “something better” would come along. Nothing did, but once again the impossible happened: “can you teach world religions? The class starts in three days.” It wasn’t nearly enough money, but I liked the students and they seemed to learn something; then I left the state, and once more turned down additional classes hoping for something better (or maybe just going back to teaching where I had taught before, even though the bad taste hadn’t left my mouth). But nothing: or at least nothing I was willing to do. Maybe I wouldn’t teach?

Then a friend was going on sabbatical, and needed his intro class covered. I’ve taught this before, should be easy, and after all, I enjoy teaching even if the money isn’t that good. Well: I liked about four of my students, the ones who seemed to read and be willing to ask reasonable questions. The other twenty five just wanted me to give them the right answer, which became increasingly frustrating. At least this time, I really do have something better lined up, something that’s not teaching, and (at least potentially) has a real future. Twelve years after I first contemplated the possibility of not teaching, I’m finally there: not teaching. 

I’m mostly okay with it, because I don’t enjoy it anymore; maybe I would if I could give more time and energy to it (a pay raise would have helped – I was getting the same amount this past semester as I had fifteen years ago!). Accompanying this post was supposed to be a cartoon featuring actual quotes from students, but that will have to wait.