Adventures in Disconnected Academia

I've had a weird couple of weeks.

I'm not really sure how to organize or write this post (thankfully, I'm not a professional blogger who should make sense), so bear with me...

For several years...ok - a lot of years - all right...seven years - I was a graduate student. While teaching was always a big part of my life, and my focus, there was always something forcing me back to the world of theory and talking in big words with intellectual thoughts and amazing inspirations and epiphanies.

Well, I landed a full-time, tenure-track job in 2007. I had a baby in 2008. I defended my dissertation in 2008. I was awarded tenure in 2009.

I forgot about thinking.

I forgot about theory and conversing on an intellectual level about anything other than the practical, day to day life of working at a community college and teaching my 5/5 load (although, since I teach overload and summers, it's a 6/6/2 load). Don't get me wrong - that's still less than a full time job "in class." However, when you count in the numerous hours planning activities and lessons, grading, responding, and answering emails, I would say I work an easy 60 hours a week without blinking.

In the past few weeks, I've had the opportunity to go to a major convention for people in the field of Composition and Rhetoric. While it was *highly* disturbing to see how disconnected many of them are from what those of us who actually teach community college populations do on a daily basis, at the same time, it was nice to hear it being spoken about.

There were all these words and terms and thoughts that hadn't entered my mind since I defended my dissertation.

In some ways, I think those of us working at the community college, and especially those of us with a developmental class or two (or four or five) tend to get really isolated and bogged down in the daily practical issues of just getting your students to show up, do homework, and participate. I think it's understandable that this happens - we don't have time for much else. Add in friends or a family or a hobby and you have less than no time to do any "theoretical" work.

But then I realized that there was still this ongoing academic conversation...and that a very important voice was missing. We go to the two-year college conferences, but that's just preaching to the choir. We need to remember what it's like to speak to our "intellectual superiors" (in that they work at a university or full college with lesser loads and stricter tenure requirements).

It was nice to be reminded that I don't work in a vacuum. Today we had our annual English Dept. In-service and it was nice to be reminded that it doesn't always have to be practical. Sometimes theory is fun - because in theory, it all works out in the end.