Teacher turned Tech Writer -

[Barbara Yanez <BarbaraYanez -at- cogentsystems -dot- com>]

I could not agree more. I taught ESL also - at community colleges, where you
don't even get the summer off.

Add all the things that Melanie wrote to the fact that in California it is
next to impossible to get full-time in the community colleges. This was the
state's way to balance the budget. Offer no one benefits of any kind. Make
everyone part-time. Limit the number of hours per DISTRICT (which is often
comprised of 5 or so community colleges) to, say, 5 hours or so, so that in
order to eke out a living, you have to travel around to 3 or 4 community
college districts each week, trying to piece your schedule together like a
jigsaw puzzle that never works. Note that the hour limit is per DISTRICT -
which covers a large area, so that to make any decent living you might have
to do 3 hours in Orange county district, , 3 hours in Ventura's district, 3
hours in Pasadena, and 3 hours in Los Angeles community college district,
etc. For those of you not familiar with this area, this is a huge area to
cover driving oin your car, on LA freeways. 

Each semester your schedule changes and you get to have fun trying to make
it all work. This means perhaps you get a M and W class from 9 to 10:30, but
then you get offered a class in another district that semester that is
Monday through Thursday from 10 to 12. So, you have to decided which one
you'll take, and take the decrease in your salary for that semester because
you can't do both. in, you are not even a part-timer; you are like a 'guest
lecturer.' You do not qualify for unemployment, and they do not have to have
a reason to get rid of you.

I got tired of that and got myself promoted to Program Coordinator in one
district where I stayed for a while and then moved to another district where
I began as a program coordinator and then was promoted to Director. That
alleviated the part-timer/freeway flier problem, but then many schools
started collapsing their ESL in with other departments when funding was once
again cut. I found myself with the remedial English kids mixed in with ESL
kids. Loads of fun; imagine a highly-educated person from Iran or Russia or
Cuba, who already has two degrees in his own country, sitting next to a
person who went to elementary school and above here, but grew up in little
Saigon or East LA or somewhere where the schools were very poor, and who has
some second language 'noise' in his speech because his parents and peers
spoke either no English or broken English. Add to that students who have
learning disabilities, etc., All of these people in the same classroom, in
the same program. It was great fun for the instructors as well, trying to
teach classes like that and keep everyone happy. And adults are not a
'captive audience' like elementary students are. If they sense you are
wasting their time they drop out. So, the instructors had it worse than I
did as an administrator. They were being called on the carpet all the time
because the powers that be wanted to know why the students were dropping
out. 

In some ways I had it worse than the instructors, however. Whenever you are
the head honcho in a bad situation you are really in trouble. You are the
punching bag for everyone, and all you can do when they come to your office
to complain is say "Well, we're trying to do something about that." When
secretly you know they are right, but you are not allowed to say that. Major
moral dilemma.

Add to that the "grammar is totally forbidden" thinking permeating the field
of ESL today, along with the fact that, even as a Director in the field of
education, I was paid less than I was as a 'rank and file' tech writer when
I first got into tech writing. I finally decided that I had had it.

I am much happier now. 

Barbara Yanez

------------------------------

Melanie writes:


My sister teaches 4th grade - she works 10-20 hours more per week than 
I do,
and makes about 1/2 what I do. To me, it's not worth the summers off.

As a technical writer, I get to learn new technologies and "teach" 
others
how to use them. 

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