I attended the annual AHA meeting several weeks ago in lovely San Diego and have been mulling my thoughts about it during my brief moments of down time. (I am furiously revising in the hope of finishing in March even though Advisor still wants three rounds of revisions. Sigh.)
The AHA was good overall. I ran into friends I hadn't seen in a while and met some new cool people right from the start. Also, it was sunny and warm. This was my first AHA, but veterans tell me that usually the meeting is dreary and tense. Their near-universal approval of this one seems to boil down to changes: 1) a horrible job market which kept all of the job-seekers - and their conference-infiltrating panic - away, and 2) the southern California sun. Precedent indicates that next year's conference in Boston will be much less pleasant because all Boston can offer is grey skies and snow.
The job market was, indeed, as bad as all the rumors made it out to be. I applied for 20 jobs and got one interview, which, as I discovered, was a small miracle (since I'm ABD and don't attend a top-tier school). I think this speaks to the strength of my project(s) and breadth of training (in public and world history as well as US). Anyway, the interview went fine but not well and I walked away from our very pleasant conversation know that I would not have a campus interview. I'm ok with that. I also applied for only one job through the job registry. This list was sickeningly short. There were less than twenty jobs posted and only a couple in U.S. (and these wanted someone who could teach every aspect of world and US history and supervise interns and teach public history - basically everything). I'll be heading to Boston next year, so I comment then on whether there is any improvement or not.
The boycott was... disappointing. I knew that HERE planned to coordinate a boycott long before the conference and I supported the issues that motivated it. I also thought that the AHA took appropriate steps to use the Manchester hotel as a forum to discuss LGBT issues and the controversies over same-sex marriage. The hotel is not unionized and HERE (smartly) wouldn't say that they were trying to unionize workers there (let's hope so; they deserve union representation). This is why I didn't accept the unsolicited offer by one AHA member to reschedule my session for me in a different hotel. I also didn't feel remorse when I walked past the 3-4 person picket line rallied outside the Manchester on Friday.
Boycotting the Manchester turned out to be easy. I spent some time there but no money; that hotel was way beyond the means of graduate students, new faculty, and even some tenured faculty. The rooms were over-priced and so was all the food (in table-service only restaurants). I had to walk next door to the Marriott to find food at the Starbucks, which ran out by 1 PM because 60% of attendees also went for breakfast and lunch.
What I saw of the conference sessions were predicable, some good papers, some good comments. I didn't attend many because the AHA is exhausting and I needed down time. So, this is what I got from my AHA: meet up with friends, try to attend sessions, avoid the job registry, eat good food, and remember to relax.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Thursday, January 7, 2010
something to chew on...
I'm off to the AHA, under a particularly grim cloud that hangs over the profession. Here's the AHA's guru on the state of the profession, Robert Townsend's take on the job market.
If you're brave enough to read the above article then be sure to follow that up with the insightful questions Brainstorm asks of demand- and supply-side factors in the history job "market."
If you're brave enough to read the above article then be sure to follow that up with the insightful questions Brainstorm asks of demand- and supply-side factors in the history job "market."
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
hunting
I just submitted my twentieth job application. I have only a few more to go. This effort has paid off; I have an interview, which was my highest expectation heading into the process the academic job hunt.
I've noticed that as the job hunting season heads into its twilight the application requirements are becoming more and more strange. The earliest applications were straight-forward and predictable: letter, CV, writing sample, maybe a teaching statement. Now, I encounter requests for a statement of scholarly philosophy, employment forms, and on-line applications (not to mention proof of membership in the Lutheran Sanhedrin - I couldn't apply for that one). The forms and on-line application are particularly tedious since they appear designed for the hiring of staff ("list your employment history for the past ten years") and the CV I submit with my applications is always more detailed than I could be in the form/ap.
But only a few more weeks of unusual requests, (*sigh*) for this year.
I've noticed that as the job hunting season heads into its twilight the application requirements are becoming more and more strange. The earliest applications were straight-forward and predictable: letter, CV, writing sample, maybe a teaching statement. Now, I encounter requests for a statement of scholarly philosophy, employment forms, and on-line applications (not to mention proof of membership in the Lutheran Sanhedrin - I couldn't apply for that one). The forms and on-line application are particularly tedious since they appear designed for the hiring of staff ("list your employment history for the past ten years") and the CV I submit with my applications is always more detailed than I could be in the form/ap.
But only a few more weeks of unusual requests, (*sigh*) for this year.
Friday, November 13, 2009
insanity by degrees
1000 words.
That is what I still need to cut from my article manuscript in order to meet the miserly guidelines of the review committee. And don't think that these are reasonable guidelines. I am supposed to submit a 7000 word essay (including footnotes)!! Who writes journal articles like that?! 7000 words is graduate-seminar essay length; it begins to tell a story but can't do it justice. Still, I think if the reviewers read the beginning of my story, they will be so enthralled that they'll want to read the full 13,000 word version. Let's hope so! Cross your fingers for me.
(This must be driving me nuts because it prompted me to update my blog!)
That is what I still need to cut from my article manuscript in order to meet the miserly guidelines of the review committee. And don't think that these are reasonable guidelines. I am supposed to submit a 7000 word essay (including footnotes)!! Who writes journal articles like that?! 7000 words is graduate-seminar essay length; it begins to tell a story but can't do it justice. Still, I think if the reviewers read the beginning of my story, they will be so enthralled that they'll want to read the full 13,000 word version. Let's hope so! Cross your fingers for me.
(This must be driving me nuts because it prompted me to update my blog!)
Friday, October 9, 2009
meeting the standards
California grade-schoolers work all year in preparation to pass the state standards exam. Here's a sample worksheet that is supposed to help them meet those standards.* Click on the image for a better view.
*and it passes on the tradition of ethno-racial stereotyping
*and it passes on the tradition of ethno-racial stereotyping
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Blend
"Blend." That's the new word in trend-setting California for locating a new low in public education.
Last week, during the third week of instruction, one of the second-grade classes at Local Elementary School was "blended" with a third-grade class. Now, second and third grade students share the same classroom, instructor, and instructional time even though they are both held to two different sets of standards. Everyone I know who teaches at post-secondary institutions is familiar with the general notion of a "blended" classroom. We get a diverse array of students with different backgrounds, abilities, and experiences, who respond at different rates to the material that everyone gets in class. We meet them and their needs and work to expand their skills and knowledge.
Based on my limited observation, this is also the case in a traditional grade school class. Every classroom has kids who read or crunch numbers beyond or behind their peers; others have stayed up late playing video games, and others just daydream. Because of No Child Left Behind and its implementation through State Standards Tests, the grade-school teachers that I know work to get each student to some abstract grade level that is presumably measured by those tests but they also work to expand the skills and imagination of students in ways that can't be measured by tests.
"Blended" classes are not these traditional classes that unite students approximately based on age and ability. In fact, "blends" are not new to California but there are a lot more of them this year because state-lawmakers have proved themselves totally unable to comprehend fiscal and social responsibility. Thus, my local second-grade became a 2/3 blend a couple of weeks after the school-year had started. And, to clarify further, a blended class does not track each child individually, mapping their progress and teaching them how to self-motivate and take charge of daily and weekly assignments. This is not a Montessori-style of blended classroom. Instead, one teacher is responsible for teaching two different, state-approved, grade-level curricula to two different sets of students in one class every single day (until they take their State Standards Test in the Spring). In other words, "blending" is a great business model; when measured in raw numbers we California residents get more grade-schoolers through our public institutions while we spend less educating them. But, as we're all well-aware, business should never be allowed near education.
We learned last week, after nearly a full week of "blending," that the 2/3 teacher is "excited" by the coming year. She will scurry between second and third graders throughout the day, shift the third grade to another classroom for social studies, and get the windfall of having an "aid" (read: part-time, no benefits, minimum wage). She will now have students in her class who range in age from 6 to 9 years old. And she has a bigger class too. Twenty-four second graders this year and six third-graders (she had a total of 17 second-graders last year) . But she is still held to the grade-standards set years ago for smaller classes. This "excited" second-third grade teacher offered the very telling explanation that (degree-carrying and certified) teachers "are a luxury" in California's public education system.
Before the current school year California was ranked 51st in the nation for its spending on public education (behind all other states and Puerto Rico). We thought California had hit the bottom before we discovered that the bottom had fallen out of the state economy. Now, California is probing the depths beyond paucity as it "funds" public education, and teachers, we discovered, have become a "luxury."
I can't help but worry over where this is headed: how will California continue to secure federal funding when its students fail to meet federal standards because the students simply cannot pass the tests? How many times will those students who stick with it have to repeat grades? Will all California public school graduates be 22 or older when they finally finish? Where can these "kids" go to college (at similarly strickened California Universities)? And what kind of professions could they possibly enter? Has K-12 education in California become something that only the rich can afford (through private schools)?
Grade-school teachers are a luxury that California has to force itself to indulge.
Last week, during the third week of instruction, one of the second-grade classes at Local Elementary School was "blended" with a third-grade class. Now, second and third grade students share the same classroom, instructor, and instructional time even though they are both held to two different sets of standards. Everyone I know who teaches at post-secondary institutions is familiar with the general notion of a "blended" classroom. We get a diverse array of students with different backgrounds, abilities, and experiences, who respond at different rates to the material that everyone gets in class. We meet them and their needs and work to expand their skills and knowledge.
Based on my limited observation, this is also the case in a traditional grade school class. Every classroom has kids who read or crunch numbers beyond or behind their peers; others have stayed up late playing video games, and others just daydream. Because of No Child Left Behind and its implementation through State Standards Tests, the grade-school teachers that I know work to get each student to some abstract grade level that is presumably measured by those tests but they also work to expand the skills and imagination of students in ways that can't be measured by tests.
"Blended" classes are not these traditional classes that unite students approximately based on age and ability. In fact, "blends" are not new to California but there are a lot more of them this year because state-lawmakers have proved themselves totally unable to comprehend fiscal and social responsibility. Thus, my local second-grade became a 2/3 blend a couple of weeks after the school-year had started. And, to clarify further, a blended class does not track each child individually, mapping their progress and teaching them how to self-motivate and take charge of daily and weekly assignments. This is not a Montessori-style of blended classroom. Instead, one teacher is responsible for teaching two different, state-approved, grade-level curricula to two different sets of students in one class every single day (until they take their State Standards Test in the Spring). In other words, "blending" is a great business model; when measured in raw numbers we California residents get more grade-schoolers through our public institutions while we spend less educating them. But, as we're all well-aware, business should never be allowed near education.
We learned last week, after nearly a full week of "blending," that the 2/3 teacher is "excited" by the coming year. She will scurry between second and third graders throughout the day, shift the third grade to another classroom for social studies, and get the windfall of having an "aid" (read: part-time, no benefits, minimum wage). She will now have students in her class who range in age from 6 to 9 years old. And she has a bigger class too. Twenty-four second graders this year and six third-graders (she had a total of 17 second-graders last year) . But she is still held to the grade-standards set years ago for smaller classes. This "excited" second-third grade teacher offered the very telling explanation that (degree-carrying and certified) teachers "are a luxury" in California's public education system.
Before the current school year California was ranked 51st in the nation for its spending on public education (behind all other states and Puerto Rico). We thought California had hit the bottom before we discovered that the bottom had fallen out of the state economy. Now, California is probing the depths beyond paucity as it "funds" public education, and teachers, we discovered, have become a "luxury."
I can't help but worry over where this is headed: how will California continue to secure federal funding when its students fail to meet federal standards because the students simply cannot pass the tests? How many times will those students who stick with it have to repeat grades? Will all California public school graduates be 22 or older when they finally finish? Where can these "kids" go to college (at similarly strickened California Universities)? And what kind of professions could they possibly enter? Has K-12 education in California become something that only the rich can afford (through private schools)?
Grade-school teachers are a luxury that California has to force itself to indulge.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
hiatus
Taking a hiatus is nice, but it's a difficult thing to come back from.
I took a blogging hiatus this summer. I took hiatus from a lot of my routine. The four weeks I had planned to spend in Montana grew to six. This was a hiatus from home, not from work. And, as it turns out, I accomplished a lot. I finished a chapter that I had been struggling to complete for months. It became monstrous - in terms of size, not content. Now, Adviser tells me that it is two, not one chapter. Which means one more chapter - the denouement - will suffice for a dissertation. (This, despite the fact that I have grand visions for an additional chapter. It can wait.) I am enjoying a few brief days of levity; it's as if an incredible weight I've been carrying feels a bit lighter. No doubt, I will grow weary under its weight again as I turn to revisions and to the introduction, but I plan to remember this fleeting levity which I'm enjoying at the end of my hiatus.
I took a blogging hiatus this summer. I took hiatus from a lot of my routine. The four weeks I had planned to spend in Montana grew to six. This was a hiatus from home, not from work. And, as it turns out, I accomplished a lot. I finished a chapter that I had been struggling to complete for months. It became monstrous - in terms of size, not content. Now, Adviser tells me that it is two, not one chapter. Which means one more chapter - the denouement - will suffice for a dissertation. (This, despite the fact that I have grand visions for an additional chapter. It can wait.) I am enjoying a few brief days of levity; it's as if an incredible weight I've been carrying feels a bit lighter. No doubt, I will grow weary under its weight again as I turn to revisions and to the introduction, but I plan to remember this fleeting levity which I'm enjoying at the end of my hiatus.
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