In some cases, tenacity is considered a positive trait. In particular, persistence in the face of adversity is often believed to be heroic. However, it seems to easily cross the line into the area of annoying. Sadly for me, my persistence seems to find its way onto people's lists of annoyances entirely too quickly.
While there are many issues that I could use as an example (some probably popped into people's minds the moment I mentioned the idea), the one that sticks out to me the most was the issue that soured my time teaching at Baker College. As an English teacher, my first class as an adjust there was Composition I (Eng 101). At the time, the primary structure of the class was to have students write four progressively more difficult papers during the ten week course (this was later taken down to three, thankfully). The required textbooks consisted of a writers' handbook and a literature anthology of a wide variety of great writings.
I loved teaching that course--especially while simultaneously teaching high school level students--because I was so often present when these adult students suddenly "got it." Time and again, I would see people suddenly understand the world of literature that had opened up to them. I remember one particular conversation with a man in his sixties who spoke to me after class about how robbed he felt that it was only now, so much later in life, that he was able to see, understand, and enjoy the fantastic culmination of human existence that is found in what had before been tortuous pages of inscrutable material.
And then they axed it.
While I used the opportunity to have the literature be the gateway and common basis for my students' writings, other adjuncts were teaching the mechanics of literary terms and grammatical formulas in the traditional fashion, which not only reinforced many students' disdain for literature, but had them loudly questioning how this was going to help them write better in their non-literature-based career path. It didn't help that we were having students use MLA for their formatting in Comp I, only to switch them over to APA for Comp II. As Baker College was a "business college" (I had to wear a tie and was supposed to always have a suit jacket at hand), they decided rework the Comp I curriculum, gutting it of literature.
What remained was soulless. We had the same writers' handbook (well, a new edition), a dumbed down version of that same guide's highlights called APA: The Easy Way, and an entirely dry text called Writing Composition. I thought of all of the people who were from then on to be robbed of their chance to delve into the literary world, and I protested any time someone asked me about my thoughts regarding the framework of the course.
I specifically remember going into my dean's office one day before I fell under the power of a different, bitter dean, and thus also before this dean and I had a larger falling out. She told me that at a recent meeting, multiple people had recommended that Baker College add me to its curriculum oversite committee. She said that one of the people involved removed my name from consideration because, "He's always talking about literature. He's still gnawing at that old bone." Had I been there with a corded rope, I would have braided it into a whip and lashed about while overturning their tables.
Therewithin lies one of the reasons that I haven't pursued a career in school administration.
While there are many issues that I could use as an example (some probably popped into people's minds the moment I mentioned the idea), the one that sticks out to me the most was the issue that soured my time teaching at Baker College. As an English teacher, my first class as an adjust there was Composition I (Eng 101). At the time, the primary structure of the class was to have students write four progressively more difficult papers during the ten week course (this was later taken down to three, thankfully). The required textbooks consisted of a writers' handbook and a literature anthology of a wide variety of great writings.
I loved teaching that course--especially while simultaneously teaching high school level students--because I was so often present when these adult students suddenly "got it." Time and again, I would see people suddenly understand the world of literature that had opened up to them. I remember one particular conversation with a man in his sixties who spoke to me after class about how robbed he felt that it was only now, so much later in life, that he was able to see, understand, and enjoy the fantastic culmination of human existence that is found in what had before been tortuous pages of inscrutable material.
And then they axed it.
While I used the opportunity to have the literature be the gateway and common basis for my students' writings, other adjuncts were teaching the mechanics of literary terms and grammatical formulas in the traditional fashion, which not only reinforced many students' disdain for literature, but had them loudly questioning how this was going to help them write better in their non-literature-based career path. It didn't help that we were having students use MLA for their formatting in Comp I, only to switch them over to APA for Comp II. As Baker College was a "business college" (I had to wear a tie and was supposed to always have a suit jacket at hand), they decided rework the Comp I curriculum, gutting it of literature.
What remained was soulless. We had the same writers' handbook (well, a new edition), a dumbed down version of that same guide's highlights called APA: The Easy Way, and an entirely dry text called Writing Composition. I thought of all of the people who were from then on to be robbed of their chance to delve into the literary world, and I protested any time someone asked me about my thoughts regarding the framework of the course.
I specifically remember going into my dean's office one day before I fell under the power of a different, bitter dean, and thus also before this dean and I had a larger falling out. She told me that at a recent meeting, multiple people had recommended that Baker College add me to its curriculum oversite committee. She said that one of the people involved removed my name from consideration because, "He's always talking about literature. He's still gnawing at that old bone." Had I been there with a corded rope, I would have braided it into a whip and lashed about while overturning their tables.
Therewithin lies one of the reasons that I haven't pursued a career in school administration.
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