I'm out on parole (and I'm a flight risk)
Lately, I have been thinking about Red from Stephen King’s “Shawshank Redemption” and his experience with parole. Over his 40 years in prison, he comes up for parole every 10 years. Each time, he tries to say what the parole board wants him to say—he feels remorse, he’s rehabilitated, he’ll never do it again—and keeps getting denied.
Finally, he tells them the truth: stop wasting my time and do what you want to do because, “I don’t give a shit.”
Today was my last teaching day of the semester. I still have to give my final exam, but that is only because I said we would have a final. The truth is, I don’t give a shit. The other day, a student with a high C grade asked me what he could do to get a B. I thought to myself, how about just ask for one?
I enjoyed my semester. I had great students. It was likely one of my most successful semesters ever in terms of enrollment and retention—my classes all filled, I kept most of my students, and most of those who stayed will pass. But I have reached the end. I am done teaching.
Walking out the door today, I thought this must be what it feels like to be released from jail—looking forward to a kind of freedom that you only feel when coming out of something so deeply restrictive that it prevents you from being you.
Before anyone gets bent out of shape about my privilege in comparing the experiences of a college professor finishing her term to a convict being released from jail, please note I understand that both the burden of my recent past and the prospects of my near future are not as heavy or limiting as those of an ex-con.
But they are heavy and limiting enough for me to begin to call myself an ex-professor.
A couple of weeks ago, I went before the college parole board, hoping to be released from the inferior and marginalized adjunct faculty cells to the country club golden handcuffs of tenure-track faculty, and was told I am not worthy of such imprisonment.
I am not enough like them to be equal.
My responses to their questions do not conform to their answer key.
My insincerity is not adequately insincere.
But really what they told me was that I’ve done my time, I’ve learned my lesson, and I’m ready to go.
Walking out the door today felt like freedom because it was. While I have to show up Thursday to give my final exams, I’ve already emptied my office. I am not a recidivist; I am not going back there.
They don’t give a shit. And, on this point, we agree.
