Posts Tagged ‘education’
School photography is fun. It doesn’t last, mostly because it’s on an even tighter schedule than the school year — most of our work ends by mid-October, and I wasn’t hired until early August.
I have interviews on Tuesday.
Interview One: After-school tutoring for students with learning disabilities. At $12/hour, the price is right, though the hours are few.
They’re looking for special education teachers, ideally, but I think I can turn them around once I turn on my charm. Yeah — maybe if I keep thinking that, it’ll work out that way.
Interview Two: Long-term substituting position. Word has it that a history teacher is about to go administration on us. He’s at a great local high school in a poor part of town, and the staff is filled from grads from the local Christian college.
I play in the band at that same local Christian college. I also don’t know if the future vice principal in question has someone else in mind.
Bad: Signs point to maybe. Good: I have two shots.
Does being in some minority pressure people out their profession? In an office of whites, would lone Hispanic gentlemen feel out of place? Popular opinion would affirm that he would. Given my work environment, however, I feel as if I should have the similar reaction, even though I don’t.
Nearly every other active photographer in our office is a little different than I, although to say that is a little backwards — I’m the newcomer, here. To be sure, I’m a little different than most of the active photographers in our office.
Simply put, I’m a dude. Most everyone else isn’t.
Though my company is an equal opportunity employer, and ignoring for a moment that the office staff is pretty evenly split, the bulk of our field photogs are female. Of about 25 photographers, there were six guys when I started. Four of us were hired just this year, and one of us had the initiative to get himself fired before training ended.
Although there was nothing improper about his firing — he didn’t think twice about calling in sick whenever he didn’t feel like showing up, and this during training — I liked him well enough, chronic absence and all. Had he showed up, he might have been an ideal employee. Probably not, though.
Among the photographers, now, there are five guys. On one of our so-far rare reprieves, I asked why there were so many more gals driving to schools every day. Basically, she said:
Guys just don’t tend to last that long. Maybe they just say, “I have enough girl problems, already.”
After a pause and a bit of a chuckle, she noted:
Those guys who do stick usually don’t have girl problems.
Even as an adult heterosexual white male, I’m perfectly comfortable with the mostly female staff I see every day — my year or two in a sorority steels my nerves in that regard — and I can’t help but be amused.
In America, adult heterosexual white males are supposed to crowd out everyone else in from the adult heterosexual while male professions in construction, politics, journalism, high finance and the military. After a year in education and the beginning of what may be many years in school photography, I’ve managed to choose two fields where adult heterosexual white males are in the minority.
I’m either open minded or I really want to seem that way.
Why does humanity at large continue to plod along the same, old track? When we’re pubescent, we rebel against authority, though have the choice to acquiesce. When we’re middle aged, we have crises, though we are perfectly capable of avoiding the Mercedes dealership.
One Past Fallbrook will discuss immaturity, growing up and death, with particular interest in the idiosyncrasies of children, teenagers and adults. As a school photographer, I’m in a more-or-less unique position to deal with nearly every one of these age groups in every day of my work, and all of my friends need just as much maturing as I do.
There will be no dearth of material.
On the Tenure Track had a marvelous run, but as I turned away from education, my focus did as well. No doubt that by now readers had noticed a marked decline in on-topic blogging, if there are any readers left. Maybe I’ll return my focus to education, someday, when I’ve developed a thick skin for politics, unions and cattiness, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Then again, anything is possible, and it’s a long way to retirement.
