Hooray for Dr. Biden and her commitment to the ethos of the community college.
This month's More magazine features an interview with the wife of the V-POTUS. She is currently teaching three sections of English at Delaware Technical and Community College. She calls this her "one sacred area." My first response to her work was to wonder how bad the job of Second Lady must be to find teaching freshman comp a better option! But then, from the article, I couldn't really tell whether she teaches writing or literature.
Dr. Biden talks about her commitment to people like herself, women who go back to college after marriage and children. She says that she believes in her students and lets them know. Her comments remind me so much of folks at COCC like my friend Carolyn Esky and others in the Human Development program.
Interviewer Lynn Sherr asked Jill Biden, "What is it about community colleges that so moves you?"
Dr. Biden answers, "It's people who are struggling to get ahead. They work at minimum wage jobs; they're trying to support families. I want to raise awareness that this is the perfect place for them to get job training or that it's the gateway to a four-year college."
I agree with her views. But please don't think I am a community college teacher out of any kind of altruism. I sometimes think it would be nice to live the life of my oldest friend -- a private university professor who pretty much teaches just what he wants to teach and who has grad students doing his slave work. But, bottom line, I prefer doing what I do. I believe in the community college not just for my students but for myself. I think that what I do is "right livelihood," one branch of the noble Eightfold Path. By increasing other people's opportunity to live a successful and powerful life, I ease my own suffering. And there ain't nothin' self sacrificing about that.
