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The Teaching Front
We’re midway through the French-Indian War in my American History 120s, having blasted through Early Colonialism as rapidly as possible. There are important components which I will pick up later, namely triangular trade, mercantilism and the like when we approach the American Revolution. I didn’t waste any time on the Salem Witch Trials (I never do). On the other hand, I spent a significant amount of time laying down the foundation of slavery in America.
At our present pace, we should arrive at the first exam dates by the end of week five, start of week six. This is later than my peers, probably because I spend a lecture day or two talking about the nature of history in general. On the other hand, I’m further along on the timeline than many of them.
Not that it is a competition. Each teaches there own way. Fortunately for me, the majority of my peers recognize and respect this concept.
In American History 121 I’ve got a split between my two evening classes. One of them is about to fight the Spanish-American War after we spent time on the concept of Imperialism. Prior to that we used Andrew Carnegie as our focal point for the Second Industrial Revolution. And of course, we covered Reconstruction. In the other class we are just about to emerge from Reconstruction. Hopefully we’ll pick up speed over the next two weeks.
I’m building new exams for all classes this semester, generating new essay questions as we move along. I’ve been using the same essays for a couple of years now and it seems to be long past time to switch things up.
Once we clear the first exams I’ll proceed forward to the Pre-Revolutionary Era and Theodore Roosevelt respectively. I think I’ve got at least two to three good classes with the potential for a fourth if I can weed out the dead weight or get them to see the light. The first exam almost always serves as a wake up call for many of them. They’ll make a decision to double down or bail out based upon what happens in the next couple of weeks.
Perhaps the most frustrating thing about this period is that I provide ample warning for what is coming down the pike. It isn’t an ambush by any means, instead it is perhaps more akin to a carefully scripted training exercise. They are given metrics by which I will grade the exam in the form of commonly made mistakes. In many ways, it is another history lecture for the students, a history of their predecessors and how they tend to react to the first exams in my classes.
Sadly, they frequently ignore these warnings and advance to contact expecting to get through without too much trouble.
They are often sorely mistaken.
Lastly, I had a guest visit my classroom to see how I did business. She was there on the day we killed General Edward Braddock, a bastard in need of frequent killing if you ask me. Later when I talked with my guest, she said if she had more history instructors like me, she might have chosen a different discipline. She gave me high marks for getting my students to class on time, keeping their attention and moving forward at a brisk pace.
I’ve got to say, I always appreciate positive feedback concerning my teaching. Thanks!
The Writing Front
I was able to get fiction writing done on three separate instances this week. Next week, the plan is to increase that to four days a week, Monday through Friday, probably around the two pm time frame. That isn’t my strongest time creatively but it is open and the campus is relatively quiet.
I also transcribed some of the longhand material, tweaking and refining as I went. I’m pretty happy with the results so far.
The goal is to have a finished product ready by semester’s end. Perhaps I might sign up for the National Novel Writing Month competition. This is slated to become a novella sized project and I think the subject matter I’ll address warrants that much coverage.
It feels good to be back in the saddle again. This wouldn’t be possible without the support of the Woman I Love, Trinity, who got her vehicle back to operational status, freeing me from transport duties.
Thank you very much.
The Fitness Front
The transportation freedom mentioned above has given me the flexibility to focus on my efforts in the swimming pool. This week the goal was to complete 4000 yards by today. I fell short by a 1000 yards since I didn’t go today.
On the other hand, my weight is now down to 190.5 pounds, more than twenty pounds less than my January 2012 high of 212 pounds.
My energy levels are good on a relatively consistent basis. On the rare instance when I am late to class and I have to drop for push ups (I believe in paying for breaking my own syllabus rules, believe it or not) I can easily pump out more push ups than are actually required. In fact, I got applause in one class for pumping out twenty without too much effort.
Not bad, given that I had swam a thousand yards with a 25 push up warm up a mere thirty minutes earlier.
The only downside of the renewed fitness condition is that I often underestimate how much projection power I have.
I’ve become known as “The Loud One.”
Other Fronts
The new glasses came in to replace the pair I busted last week. Now all we need to do is just count the days down to the next two pay days on the 22nd and the 1st respectively. Those resources should, finally, after ten months of economic misery, lost sleep and bubbling anger, allow us to patch the last of the major holes in the budget. Barring anymore disasters, we can move forward with getting our fiscal house in order.
I continue to read Dario Cirello’s Aegean Dream, a memoir of the time Dario and his wife spent in Greece. It is strange to be reading this while I am taking Spanish. The commentary on language troubles matches my own efforts at trying to speak Spanish intelligently.
Finally, the new Kindle arrived to replaced the dead one. I’ll pick it up from the landlord’s office tomorrow before I head off to training with the Lifeguard Company I work for.
So it goes. Things are getting better by the day, barring an exception or two. May the upward climb continue.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
Back in January of 2011, I hopped on the scale and watched the digital readout give me bad news.
Two hundred and twelve pounds, the heaviest I’ve weighed since graduate school. None of my clothes fit right, my energy levels were declining and nothing made me happy. There was a massive hole in the budget which only increased my worries, which would soon be followed by three more holes, one of them being a busted tooth in my mouth that would have to be dealt with.
Weight training and the elliptical trainer were not having any appreciable effect on the waistline. Tweaking my consumption habits wasn’t helping either. Every trick I had used in the past to get rid of excess weight had failed. And on top of all this, I had to build up the endurance to swim a mere 200 to 300 meters for any given Lifeguard qualification test.
It wasn’t just a whim, working as a Lifeguard, though some have perhaps taken it as such. The Summer Gap was coming and while I was confident at the time that Trinity’s summer aid would help, it wouldn’t because we didn’t get it as it turns out, we would need money to pay for gas, food and the like over the three month gap. I didn’t want to teach again that summer and it didn’t look like I’d get a class. The other alternatives were to obtain a security guard job, something I did not want to do unless I lost my teaching job completely, or work at World’s of Fun.
I had to lose the weight and I had to get a lifeguard job.
Fortunately, I got called for an interview. In retrospect, I think the person doing the interviewing was a bit amused at the then thirty-nine year old college adjunct instructor who talked about his childhood dream of working as a lifeguard, regaining his health and generally saving lives. I was given a time slot for training and sent off on my way. If I got through training, then the job was mine.
It all went pear shaped immediately. During the Spring Semester I had managed to slowly but surely whittle down my weight from 212.5 down to 202. Unfortunately, the weekend I was supposed to attend training was derailed by an attack of diverticulitis, a painful intestinal disorder which can bring even the strongest people down. With sharp stabbing pains and cramps, it would have been virtually impossible to get through the training.
To be honest, calling to reschedule my training session was humiliating in the worst possible way. Almost as if to say, “The Old Man won’t be there today because he is falling apart by the numbers.”
It got worse. Trinity found out she would not be getting financial aid for the summer, blowing yet another hole in the budget.
Ever find yourself at a crossroads? That is where I found myself last May. I was fed up with budgetary blowouts, many of which were not my doing. I was tired of watching my flanks crumble while I tried to cover everything with virtually nothing. My Spring Semester was falling apart around my years and I was starting to experience horrendous nightmares about the bills. On top of that, I couldn’t get any writing or reading done to save my life.
The stress was building to the breaking point. I needed a victory or it was all going to fall completely apart.
I didn’t know it at the time, mainly because I was absolutely focused on getting through training, but apparently there was a lot of talk about, “the Old Man,” going through training. Here in the Midwest, lifeguarding tends to be a kid’s job. I knew that but I didn’t suspect anything more of it. Looking at my physical condition then, still overweight, I suspected that many thought I would not get through training.
Thing is, I HAD to get through training. No matter what, I HAD to get through it. The bills depended on my getting through. I studied my ass off, worried that much of the information wasn’t sticking while trying to tie off the end of a bad semester.
Three months later, here I am. I’m now down to 192.5 pounds, twenty pounds down from January. I have more energy and I’m happier for the most part than I was even three months ago. The energy is reflected in my efforts in the classroom as a teacher and as a student. Looking back on it now, I’d say it was a positive experience overall. Granted, it would have been nice to avoid working all of the doubles I had to work in order to pay the bills. It would have been nice to have time during the summer to read Herodotus as I had planned, maybe get some writing done (it is obvious that I can’t get writing done at the Pod and I’ve given up on even trying) and perhaps enjoy myself.
On the other hand, that job probably saved me. It didn’t just save my physical health, it also helped me maintain my sanity, giving me a basic problem set to focus on everyday which was basically to prevent people from winning the Darwin Award. Saving lives, and I had to jump into the water more than once, provides as much of an adrenaline rush as combat. I can see coming back again and again for yet another fix.
It got me out of the frigid Pod, which Trinity keeps at a constant 68 to 70 degrees, far too cold for my tastes. It kept me from going stir crazy or pounding my head against my desk in frustration at the constant noise. It may very well have saved my relationship with my girlfriend, which was wearing awfully thin after the last blowout of the budget.
It also provided me with some insight into what I am seeing in my classrooms as an instructor. The kids I worked with, and I consider them kids, come in a variety of shapes, sizes and attitudes. In many respects, they are not that much different from the people I went to high school with back in the 1980s. Their attitudes are the same in many respects even if their slang, their culture and their dress is different. They still break down into cliques, they still bully one another and they still try to find the easiest way to do something. Many of them openly discussed things like cheating and paying someone else to do their homework for them, which only reinforced my attitudes about how I run my classroom.
When I told them how I run my classrooom, they were frequently shocked. Far too authoritarian for their tastes, they’d say in so many words. They were used to running what they considered to be their turf. The teacher or the instructor was, at best, a guest in their world. One of them even told me, “I’d walk out of your class.”
Which, umm, is sorta the point.
The doubles had a negative effect over time, which is that I began to burnout on the job around mid August. The loss of my father, the ongoing budget woes, worries about the Fall Semester and Trinity’s next financial aid package, which I was convinced would not show up on time or on target, simply wore me down.
So instead of regret or melancholy today, I feel relief. I am ready to put this season to bed and recharge the batteries for next summer while I move forward on the Teaching, Student and perhaps, finally, the Writing Front. It is a good job with a very good company which tries very hard to take care of their people. The kids who complain about the job really do not have any idea how good they have it. They’ll find out soon enough.
In the meantime, many of the other problems in my life are getting better. With Trinity’s financial aid for the Fall, we were able to put her car back on the road. This finally gets rid of the Mad Cab Driver Syndrome which was threatening to either destroy my careers or destroy our relationship, whichever came first. Many of the other fiscal holes are either being patched, plugged or on the way to being plugged. My classes are going well on both Teacher and Student Fronts so far and hopefully that will continue.
It has been a good summer in retrospect, good in that I grew a lot by going through the cauldron of all of this stress. Trinity and I have come out the other side, ready to tackle the Fall Semester.
As for my future plans?
My end of season rating was . . . I won’t say what it was other than to say it was “passable.” That said, it was a rating I am very pleased with, one I didn’t quite expect. I’ve got some opportunities ahead that I am considering. Later today I will e-mail the company and let them know that I am definitely interested in training to become a Lifeguard Instructor for Summer 2012. This will not only make me a better lifeguard, it will also provide income during the Spring 2012 Semester that will be handy to have around.
As for applying for management, I’ve pretty much decided I will do that as well. I saw some things over the last season that I didn’t particularly care for at the Lifeguard level, things which I could have intervened in using my age to push the point. That said, I’d rather have the legitimacy of a management position in order to deal with those issues.
And then there is the age thing again. I wasn’t aware of this until the end of the season, but apparently among a minority of people, there is the “Creep Factor” in a forty year old lifeguard working at a pool. No one ever stops to think that perhaps I simply needed a summer job. My interest was in saving lives, staying in shape and enjoying the summer weather, the end. I suspect that a forty year old working in leadership will probably be more palatable to many than a forty year old guard on a stand.
Ageism. Strange to encounter it. Especially when you consider that among historians where I work, I am the second youngest of our current contingent.
I love this job. It turns out that I am good at it even though I’ve got a lot to learn still. And one way or the other, after nine months, I’ll be back for another season.
So it goes.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
This week will bring to a close the full time Summer 2011 pool season. On Monday we’ll transition to weekends only. I’ve already received my schedule for the remaining shift assignments for the rest of the Summer 2011 pool season. The good news is that these additional shifts will ensure a relatively steady flow of income into the coffers until the first paycheck from teaching arrives on 1 October.
In other words, the Lifeguard job has solved the Summer Gap Problem.
We will be receiving our year end evals over the next few days as well. I think mine should turn out relatively well if I understand the eval system well enough. Unlike my teaching eval, we will not receive copies, but we will get to read them and have them explained to us. To date, I’ve not been written up or reprimanded for any unacceptable behavior. I’ve been to work on time and on target throughout the summer with the sole exception of the passing of my father, where things got a bit hairy on the schedule front.
It has been a good summer. I worked far more than I had intended to due to our financial woes, but the company I work for has taken fairly good care of me.
Now I have to ponder the future.
Part of the reason for pushing forward with Lifeguard training is the fact that there is a certain level of job security in the field. It is not the sort of job just anyone can do. One must have a rudimentary level of physical fitness and an aptitude for swimming. So long as pools are funded by local governments, there will be a need for lifeguards.
Another reason is the hope that I could translate that need into year round, part time employment. I could well do that this year but there are compelling arguments against such a move. For instance, I am taking a foreign language class for the first time since high school. To say that I’m a bit intimidated by the class is an understatement. I did not perform well in such classes in high school and given that I am taking this from a peer where I teach, there is additional pressure to perform. It seems to me that I will need all the time I can scrape together for study.
There is a fair amount of cleanup work which needs to be done at Mom’s house in the wake of my father’s passing. Weekends will probably be slated to some of that work.
Finally, it would mean working for a different organization. I’m not sure I want to be switching back and forth between two organizations if I can help it.
So, what is the future?
I’ll definitely apply for rehire status as soon as I can. I’ll definitely try to get recertified as soon as I can. That said, there are a couple of additional options.
First, I can apply for Lifeguard Instructor Training. I’ve always felt that the best way to learn something is to learn how to teach it. This would be a natural progression for me, given that I have four, soon five, years of experience as an instructor of history. There would be a pay rate increase, which would be welcome to be sure.
I’ll definitely apply for the Instructor training. It would take place during the Winter Gap. It is not paid training but that is fine by me. The training would pay for itself overtime.
Second, I can apply for a management position.
If I were in my teens, my own ambition would probably compel me to give this a shot. At forty, I’ve got to admit that I’m of two minds.
On the one hand, I bring a lot to the table in my favor. I have years of experience in various lines of work ranging from the military to teaching. My age gives me a certain level of implied authority anyway, which I often use in my current role as a regular lifeguard. There would be a pay increase as well plus the possibility of transitioning to year round employment at a new facility under construction closer to Longview.
On the other hand, head guards, supervisors and the like virtually work full time through the summer. I know I worked full time anyway but that is not quite my preference. In an ideal summer, I’d work my shifts and use the time to recharge the batteries. In some respects, I’d end up parenting some of our guards, not a prospect I relish.
I suppose what my father would say, if he were around to say it, would be this. Most folks work year round full time no matter what. They don’t get a chance to recharge the batteries and one could always use the additional money from additional hours and promotions.
There is something to be said for that.
I’m far more interested in getting a promotion to Instructor than I am in getting a promotion to management. My personality is ideally suited to the role of the Instructor. As for management . . .
It is, as teaching once was, an open question. With one exception, I have never been in a formalized leadership role. In situations where I have had to assume leadership, due to the loss of a leader or for other reasons, I have performed well enough. Perhaps the one quantity I’d have to watch for is my temper.
In any case, I’ll apply for both over the coming winter and accept what comes of the applications.
So it goes.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
Those that done said stuff