Blog Post #4: Mark!

Several years ago, I interviewed for an adjunct position. I was not a trained educator by any means; I'd taken no pedagogy or practical education courses in my undergraduate degree. But there I was, sitting across a wood-paneled folding desk from a stern trio of professors. They asked about my experience in teaching diverse students, and my mind raced. I worked and taught in small central Illinois towns. My students had been almost exclusively white-- not by choice, but rather by circumstance.

But there is a clarity achieved by any adjunct applicant as they drive away from campus in their faded 1998 Ford Taurus. Of course I had engaged with diversity! I've taught fifth graders, and I've taught retired band directors, and everything in between. I've been overpaid for lessons, and later that week negotiated deals with parents who couldn't quite afford a 30 minute lesson for their child. If there were racial tendencies, perhaps that spoke more to the privilege to which my profession (music) panders.

So I feel a particular resonance with Chapter 4's discussion of diversity. I think, in general, it asks us to consider each student as an individual. I am thankful to be able to afford that kind of time and resources for each student that enters. I am sorry to say I couldn't serve each student quite in the same way when I taught 40 young rhetoricians.