Learning Center

August 2, 2007 in Job

I’ve got 14 hours a week in the Math Department’s drop-in “Learning Center” (LC) this quarter. Usually, it’s under half of that since there’s an upper limit of 20 on the sum of “contact hours” (classroom time) and LC hours. But I’ve only got one class. For ten years now, I’ve had either 2 or 3 classes per quarter but I got bumped at the last minute this time around.

The pay is only half the “contact hour” rate (the reasoning is that classroom contact hours have to be backed up with stuff like grading and preparation), but other than that, this is overall the best part of the job: no grading, motivated students, the one-to-one format … pretty much everything. So I have to ask myself: would I willingly give up lecturing altogether and tutor full-time if I could? And I’m coming more and more (what with all these extra hours this quarter) to realize that, heck yes I would. In a well-regulated universe, some college or other would be paying me to tutor their math students, full time.

And there does have to be a college (or anyway, some “single payer”) … I’ve avoided freelancing as a private tutor pretty much altogether because of the need for sales (finding the work) and accounting (documenting the work) and collections and suchlike “running a business” tasks. If I’d wanted to do all that, I guess I’d’ve been a business major in the first place and wouldn’t be able to teach the doggone math anyhow.

Not that I resent the fact that my employer, or the academy more generally, isn’t providing me with my dream job. No way. There are so many other things going on around here (and in the academy more generally) a whole lot more resentment-worthy than that. Don’t get me started.