Introflective, Reflective Musings; Input Sought

[dcseain]

I read ozarque's journal regularly. For those of you not familiar, it's the journal of Suzette Haden Elgin. Today, she posted this, and i followed the link in the post and read what was there.

What said link leads to is a single-page PDF entitled Phonosemantic Coherence in English Assonances. It's worth looking at it, even though i think most of you will find it boringish, if interesting, for looking at it will give you some context for what follows.

I've done analyses like that one many times, usually after working with Middle English or earlier texts. I've been thinking more and more that i ought to go back to school for linguistics. Studying linguistics would please me, and i could likely make a handy career of some stripe with it.

I left university 14 years ago, uncertain what i wanted to do with my life. Well, quelle surprise, i'm not really any closer to knowing that than i was at 21. I left primarily because my university killed my, and several other, degree programs. At any rate, that's water well under the bridge.

I've worked mostly in the computer field for the last 15 years. I've got a decent job which is challenging, has a great work environment, and a nice commute. I work for a small enough company that eventually i'll be able to find, or propose, a job that will fit me like a glove within the organization.

At the same time, i'd always imagined i'd be teaching language and/or history by the time i was 40 or so. A deep-seated desire to teach has been one constant in my life since i was about 6. Seeing that paper leaves me conflicted about what to do, and unsure about what to do if i do decide to pursue the linguistics thing.

So what advice do you have for me? I'll gladly answer whatever questions you may have about this also, as i'm sure i'm leaving out information you may want. Thanks in advance for your input.

(And for what it's worth, LJ's spell checker knows not the words Phonosemantic nor Assonances, though i suppose those are jargon enough that it needn't know them. But neither does it know the plural form of analysis. Hmph.)

Comments

[selki.livejournal.com]

Maybe if you got some practical experience teaching that would help inform your choice(s). Unless I'm missing that you actually have such? I'm thinking along the lines of part-time volunteer tutoring; for instance, a few years ago I spent one evening a week at a DC computer lab teaching kids HTML and web stuff.

[(Anonymous)]

Ah, a detail i left out. I tutored in Spanish, French and History for 6 years, and i taught English and History to mostly latino aspiring citizens for 3 years. Great fun, and very rewarding that work.

[dcseain.livejournal.com]

Would that it were obvious when not logged in. I miss the great big, visible boxes.

[mobmama.livejournal.com]

my experience of teaching is that individual or small group tutoring is vastly different from teaching at either the high school or college levels. ditto for teaching self-motivated adults, which presumably is a reasonable definition of "aspiring citizen". :-)

i would encourage you to teach a class that is for middleschool or high school aged kids, or even college kids, and see what it's like for you. possibly teach a sunday school class at your church for a year?? that would be much closer to what "teaching career" is really like.

however, let me say, too, that i think you would make a wonderful teacher. and why couldn't you teach linguistics, hmmm??? combine your passions into what works for you!

personally, i used to love teaching, but now you couldn't get me into a classroom with the proverbial ten-foot-pole -- with the exception of teaching self-motivated adults.

hugs and good luck with this!

[dcseain.livejournal.com]

I have taught Sunday School, 4yr-olds. I've volunteered with ESL in an Elementary school, 6-12yr-olds. I work with teenagers regularly. I've done classroom instruction at the preschool, elementary, HS, and adult levels. The citizenship stuff was with people ranging from about 14 to about 65.

[mobmama.livejournal.com]

aha. additional information that i didn't have earlier.
thanks.

what about combining the two interests? linguistics and academia? or linguistics and TEACHING, specifically? i bet you would ROCK at that!

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Linguistics seems to be a huge field, with a lot of different things to focus on.

Do I gather that the assonances would be one you're not especially interested in?

[dcseain.livejournal.com]

As in a carrer of assonance, probably not. I'm more interested in applied and/or comparative.

[sharrainchains.livejournal.com]

My opinion is that if you feel that way, you should take some action towards your goal: "Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace and power in it." -- Goethe

If you are interested in trying to teach an occasional course on an adjunct basis, let me know: I will introduce you to a friend who is a dean at a small, private, local college. He might have a place for you - or at least some referrals/advice.

[dcseain.livejournal.com]

We can talk over dinner tomorow, for there be much to discuss as i recall.

[melted-snowball.livejournal.com]

Linguistics is not an especially easy field to get an academic career in, so this may be adding a lot of risk to your life, if that'd be the direction you wanted to go in.

Not that that means you shouldn't, but it makes a lot of sense to stop by a solid department at a reasonably local university (which for you presumably means either College Park or Georgetown? not sure...) and spending 45 min with their "director of grad studies" or the like. Do your homework first, though. In particular, if you lack a university degree, getting into grad school is apt to be a very complicated process, if you don't want to first pick up a B.A.

Spell checkers never know any of the words in my field...

[dcseain.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Georgtown and UMCP are the local programs. I live in Reston, a bit west of DC.

Half a lifetime ago, several teachers recommended i explore the programs at Georgetown, Princeton, and Hawai'i Hilo. I didn't even know UMCP had a linguistics program until you and turtleduck mentioned it.

I'm also not certain that i necessarily want to make an academic career in the field, so much as work towad teaching at some level. Though if it acadeic carerr panned out, i'd not object.

[dragonsea]

I know an undergrad in the linguistics department at College Park, if you would like an inside scoop on things.

Good luck!

[quentinor.livejournal.com]

You seem to have a passion for the English launguage, and you do have a teacher's type of personality. You need to go for what your passion is.

What? Go for what my passion is?

[dcseain.livejournal.com]

But i've bravely resisted doing that for many years now. ;D

[dr-tectonic.livejournal.com]

That PDF is really cool. I will likely use it the next time I'm making up fictional names. Thanks!

I've got a decent job which is challenging, has a great work environment, and a nice commute. I work for a small enough company that eventually i'll be able to find, or propose, a job that will fit me like a glove within the organization.

Don't undervalue this achievement. It's significant.

It sounds like you like your current job, and that it has the potential to evolve to suit you even better. Any reason you can't attempt to combine that with your desire to teach?

Do you want to teach linguistics? Or do you just want to teach, and also have an interest in linguistics?

My advice is, try considering it not as a binary choice between career A and career B, but as a set of interests (and benefits) that you'd like to combine into a single unit as much as possible, and see which ones fit harmoniously together. Maybe what you really want is to drop down to 3/4 time at your current job and pick up a part-time job teaching foreign languages to high school students. Or to become a teacher within your company. Or to ditch both job and school and write history textbooks...

Yeah, the PDF is really cool. : )

[dcseain.livejournal.com]

Ah, you bring another up a detail i left out. When i worked as the IT guy for the law-firm-from-hell, part of my job was classroom instruction of end-user computer apps.

I was not very good at that, nor did i enjoy it much. That kind of teaching is more structured than i'm comfy with. I'm not a linear, i.e. concrete sequential, person in general. I'm an abstract random. Teaching language and history are fun; they're structured but not all that linear, even with the chronology that comes with each.

As such, I'm not sure i could find, or construe, a teaching role here that i would be comfortable with. And i do value the achievement of my work situation, even when i have to work 12 hour days with a 3 million dollar deal, and my department's quarterly bonus, hanging on me fixing the customer's problem.

One thing i get to do here which is much fun is translate things for our Spanish and Portuguese customers. People outside my department have noticed that; i'm not sure that my skill with that is appreciated within Dev/Support, where i work, but ah, well.