Summer's end approaches

Yes, fall is coming. WCMIK is already back in school. I'll be heading back to the big city to start teaching my classes the week before Labor Day -- there's a new textbook for English 100, so I'll need to make a few changes to my syllabus, which means I'll be heading back a few days early to get the new book and make the changes.

While the end of the summer and the return to the city are depressing, I do have a new crop of students to look forward to. I teach at a community college, where the only mission is to serve the needs of the students. There's no distracting pressure to do research or publish important papers. In addition, I teach evening classes, and I get the very best students. A large portion of them are students who either didn't graduate from high school or graduated without learning anything. Now they've been out in the real world and discovered they don't want to work for minimum wage the rest of their life, and they've come back, and they're highly motivated. I also get displaced homemakers -- women who expected that a man would take care of them for the rest of their life, but then an unexpected death or divorce has left them with a need to earn an income. And then there are the military veterans; they make great students because they already have the self-discipline to do the homework. There are also students who have come here from other countries, and who are working to learn the language and earn their citizenship. That's heavy-duty motivation.

Every term that I teach, I learn from my students. They have so many different experiences. They come from so many different places. I've had a rocket scientist from Kazakhstan in my class, and I've also had an auto salvager from the South Valley. Both had fascinating stories to tell. So while I'll regret being at Five O'Clock Somewhere only on the weekends, I'll enjoy the travels my students provide.