A Sharecropper With A Business Card

It is sad to say, but Eustace Fairweather, an academic sharecropper with a business card, has returned to report that he is sliding down the academic ladder rung by rung…

Just last week I had three classes lined up. Now, administration gave away one of my classes to a new lecturer and collapsed the two sections into one huge class...42 students in a Mobile classroom.

I applied for a night manager job at a taco stand to make ends meet. Thank god rent is cheap out at the trailer park.

P.S. There isn't a Brooks Brothers at the mall, so would Men's Wearhouse work?

Since you are in such a pickle, Eustace, I suppose it will be acceptable for you to shop at Men’s Wearhouse until you can scrape up the bus fare to a real city.

Now, let’s address the problem of 42 students in a mobile trailer/portable classroom. This is a losing proposition, Eustace. Under these conditions, you are running a ministry, not making a living.

Of course, the administration of your school is and will be perfectly delighted to let you continue beating yourself in the head. After all, you are doing exactly what you were educated to do: screw yourself financially into the ground.

Happily, I can offer you a way out! Over on the left side of this blog there is a list of links (“The Schools”) that will take you directly to the application pages of these online institutions. After you lock up the taco stand tonight, I want you to start working the online academic territory.

I fully realize it is frightening to confront the inescapable fact that you have been deliberately mis-educated about the actual work of teaching. If you ever want to stop wearing plastic shoes it is necessary to come to grips with the reality that the paltry sum you are being paid to teach a 16-week traditional semester will never allow you to quit hustling burritos on the side.

The for-profit online teaching world runs on 11-week Quarters. Since there are four Quarters each calendar year, you can earn twice as much as you do for the two traditional semesters. The teaching itself is exactly the same as you deliver now, but you earn more money for the same effort.

Think about this the next time you find mashed pinto beans in your deluxe edition of the Republic.

Further, Eustace, you can work for several online schools at once. That is a huge benefit in economic terms. Imagine, Eustace, being able to collect twice the money from three or four schools as you are earning now from your one school! Gracious me, you just might be able to purchase a new pair of socks every now and then.

I want to put a point on this for you. Let’s say the overseers at the community college “allow” you to teach two sections at, say $1,500.00 per section. Over the traditional 16-week semester you will earn $187.50 per week, which will guarantee you can keep the taco job on the side.

If you teach two sections online at one for-profit school, you can earn $2,000.00 per section, and because the online school has 11-week Quarters instead of 16-week semesters, you will earn $363.63 per week. Thus, you will put an extra $176.13 in your pocket each week.

Now imagine that you connect with a for-profit online school that has Units lasting 5.5 weeks. Each Unit pays you $1,500.00, and the Units run back-to-back, which means one Unit ends on, say Wednesday, and the next Unit begins on Thursday. For the eleven weeks you would earn $272.72 for each Unit you teach. If you teach two Units at a time, you will pull down $545.45 per week for the eleven week period.

Therefore, Eustace, if you teach four classes online every 11 weeks, two sections for the online school that runs Quarters and two sections for the online school that runs Units, you can earn $909.08 per week!

I imagine that weekly sum would make your stock go up in the trailer park, Eustace! Also, you would have enough money to hire a lawyer to sue the faculty members that taught you there is “intellectual glamour” in sweating your tail off in a portable building out behind the baseball diamond of community college.

I want you to give this information some thought, Eustace, while you’re swabbing out the grease pit at the taco stand with one hand and grading student work with the other hand.

For my part, I’m heading over to the Bon Ton Roule for a Gin Ricky.