Slack Motherfucker
Went to our commencement tonight; I love doing this.
I teach at a community college. At commencement I get to watch students walk across the platform and pick up diplomas who have gone through some pretty tremendous shit. Working class people who have been told all their lives they're stupid, only to find out they aren't. Guys who got laid off from a manufacturing gig who learned how to program a computer. Divorced housewives who can write like nightingales sing but who were never encouraged to reach out for their intellectual potential, because our society is still burdened with idiotic sexism. Kids who were bright enough not to totally hock their futures for the debt you need for a 4 year degree and a chance at a decent life, wisely cutting their future debt burden almost in half.
Yeah, lots of people who go out for CCs don't make it, for a lot of reasons. And if they just can't cut it, I'll fail them. But most of them are just thirsty as hell for something more than the crap they're usually watered with. Amazing people. They want to learn so goddamn bad.
So what the hell. The American community college experiment is a beautiful thing. Good government in action, baby.
What a great fucking gig.
Congrats for finding a terrific job. Congrats to your students too.
In high school, I took several courses as the local community college. Actually wish I had taken more of my high school courses there. Of course, I also wish I had been the victim of some of these teachers today....
Posted by: jerry | May 19, 2007 at 03:13 AM
CC was a godsend. There I was 34 with two little kids and had been out of the workforce for eight years. Figured I would kill time by taking classes until the kids were in school full time. Never thought I could complete the AAS. Having done that, the BS was a piece of cake.
Posted by: ql in ny | May 19, 2007 at 04:58 AM
Both my husband and I started our educations at a CC. We had married young, we were broke, a child came along unexpectedly, but we were determined to go to school. I eventually got my MA and he a PhD. It was a wonderful place to start and saved us a lot of money. Our teachers were terrific.
Years later, I taught at the same CC, and what a wonderful experience. I too found the students, particularly the "non-traditional" students, engaged and motivated. Later I taught at a university, and I really didn't like it as much. I liked how grounded my CC students were compared to the middle-class suburbanites at the university, and found that the university students had much more a sense of entitlement. Community colleges do so much for people who otherwise might never get the opportunities that can lift them out of a very stuck place.
Posted by: Kris | May 19, 2007 at 07:53 AM
Well, since we're all sharing: when I was asked to leave Catholic high school at the end of my junior year for being a general pain in the ass, I found that I could take classes at the local CC. Two years later, I transferred to the big State U., where I was a year ahead of my better-behaved high school classmates.
Since then, I've taught at Universities and CC's and agree with the general consensus here that CC students are both more serious and more fun to be around. And I'm the only person I know who got a Ph.D. without ever graduating from high school.
Posted by: SteveB | May 19, 2007 at 08:11 AM
When did you deviate from GBV lyrics as post titles? And on what authority?
Posted by: Mithras | May 19, 2007 at 09:53 AM
You know, you fucking rock. I did my first two years of undergrad at a community college, teenage single mom that I was. Finished college. Finished masters, Finished law degree. Saw Son graduate from Princeton and then get his law degree. My dad got his degree due to the GI Bill and was the only person in his or my mom's family to go to college. Not everyone is born like George Bush w/ a silver coke spoon up his nose.
Posted by: Hecate | May 19, 2007 at 05:40 PM
I'm 56, hated high school, and joined the military when I graduated.
Right now, I have 16 CC credits. I just finished a French course that I attended with my 23 yr old daughter and my 21 yr old son.
Monday starts a Computer Science course for my son and I.
CC is great!
Posted by: GeorgeM | May 19, 2007 at 06:05 PM
CC did get me my computer gig. I took courses until someone hired me, now I'm making 8 times what I started at.
But, now my job is under thret of going to India or South America. What's after computer programming?
Posted by: Flamethrower | May 19, 2007 at 06:35 PM
But, now my job is under thret of going to India or South America. What's after computer programming?
Green technology, I'd guess. Our school is going into it in a big way.
Posted by: Molly Ivors | May 20, 2007 at 08:20 AM
But, now my job is under thret of going to India or South America. What's after computer programming?
How old are you? Have you considered becoming a fuse tender? It looks like we will be needing fuse tenders for quite a long time to come.
Tend fuses and see the world.
Posted by: jerry | May 20, 2007 at 01:57 PM
I'm also a community college prof, and I agree, the reason for going to commencement is to celebrate those of my students who are walking across the state and picking up their diplomas.
Posted by: Mark | May 21, 2007 at 01:16 PM
What kind of shit could a diploma go through? ;0)
Posted by: Gus | May 21, 2007 at 03:43 PM
Just to be the devil's advocate, I also taught and a CC, and my students were a very mixed bag. I usually loved the "returning students", older people with great life experience who were lots of fun to teach, discuss and argue with. The "straight-outta-high-school" students ranged from terrific and motivated to the saddest of slackers. Every term I would advise my students on the first day of class that if they stopped attending to drop. Every term I would tell the story of my dumb freshman self getting an "F" in symbolic logic because I was too lazy to get off my dead ass and go down to the registrar. And, sure enough, every term I'd open the gradebook and there they'd be, two (or four or six) students who had stopped attending in September but were still on my class list in December.
And don't even get me started about the pay for an "adjunct"
instructor...
So: CC? Some great things, some not so great. Kinda like life in general, no?
Posted by: FDChief | May 21, 2007 at 07:05 PM
Oh man. As a recent high school graduate who just started at a community college today, and is scared out of their WITS as to if they're doing the right thing or not, this post is a Godsend. Thanks so much.
Posted by: Michelle | May 21, 2007 at 11:42 PM
FD -- I got the same thing when I taught at a university. CCs are not free rides. Like I said, I'll fail someone who doesn't try or just can't hack it. But that's the minority.
Michelle: you'll get out of it what you put into it, and save a lot of money. You'll be great.
Posted by: Thers | May 22, 2007 at 02:33 AM
I saw this linked at Feministe. It made me tear up a little. I'm a CC graduate.
Posted by: SJ | May 22, 2007 at 07:19 PM