{"id":22852,"date":"2019-04-13T16:12:28","date_gmt":"2019-04-13T23:12:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/?p=22852"},"modified":"2022-04-12T14:47:23","modified_gmt":"2022-04-12T21:47:23","slug":"death-and-teaching-in-paris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/?p=22852","title":{"rendered":"Death and teaching in Paris"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n
\"\"<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Apr\u00e8s les angoisses du d\u00e9but d\u2019ann\u00e9e
T\u2019as travaill\u00e9 trois mois, toujours pas pay\u00e9e
Et les heures supprim\u00e9es, pas r\u00e9mun\u00e9r\u00e9es
T\u2019auras pas de contrat, c\u2019est l\u2019Etat
N\u2019attends pas le syndicat, il est pas l\u00e0
Gare \u00e0 toi, sois toujours sympa
C\u2019est le r\u00e8gne de l\u2019arbitraire, du pouvoir discr\u00e9tionnaire
Si \u00e7a te pla\u00eet pas, tu peux rentrer chez ta m\u00e8re
Tu comprends pas, ouvre le dictionnaire, t\u2019es vacataire;<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Refrain\u00a0<\/em>: Tu ne peux rien changer
Si tu protestes, tu te fais virer
Des bottes, tu devras l\u00e9cher[<\/sup><\/a>
– Song of the\u00a0Vacataire en col\u00e8re\u00a0<\/em>from le Blog de Carmen<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

After the anxieties of the new academic year
You\u2019ve worked three months, still not paid
And hours dropped, never remunerated
You will not have a contract, it’s the state
Do not wait for the union, it’s not there
Watch yourself, always be nice
It’s the reign of arbitrariness, discretionary power
If you do not like it, go back to your mother’s house
If you do not understand, open the dictionary, you’re a temporary worker

Chorus<\/em>: You can not change anything
If you protest, you get fired
Boots, you’ll have to lick them.
(Author\u2019s translation)

<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I was preparing to leave my apartment, to make the usual commute to teach courses at a private university on the outskirts of Paris, when a text message appeared on my phone.\u00a0\u00a0The message was brief.\u00a0\u00a0In French, it merely said a grave incident had occurred on campus involving a professor.\u00a0All classes were canceled and the campus was closed. I immediately wondered if someone I knew was hurt.\u00a0\u00a0No other messages followed for the rest of the day and I was unable to reach anyone in my department by phone.\u00a0\u00a0Googling the name of the school, it slowly became evident from news sources that one of my colleagues had been stabbed by a former student.\u00a0\u00a0As the evening wore on, more details were made available on news sites and I realised who the victim was.\u00a0\u00a0But it wasn\u2019t until late at night that an official email was sent to university faculty about the tragedy. One of our colleagues, a fellow English professor, had been brutally murdered on the steps of the school by a former student who had failed his courses in 2017. In the following paragraph, we were informed that our classes would resume in the morning.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

There was no day of mourning. Grief counselors were brought on campus for several days and a free hotline was set up for students and faculty to call in for a period of two weeks.\u00a0\u00a0At the end of the term, the university hosted an evening memorial to honor the life of the slain professor and his dedicated service to the institution where he taught for over two decades.\u00a0\u00a0(He had planned to retire at the end of the academic year).\u00a0\u00a0He was a beloved teacher and hundreds of students, faculty and staff were present to pay their respects.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0But there was no special meeting scheduled for those of us in the Languages Department who knew him \u2013 some people had worked with him for many years and were friends as well as colleagues \u2013 nor were assurances made that additional security would be put in place.\u00a0\u00a0We emailed one another in the days following his death, sharing our concerns and knowledge of the circumstances of our colleague\u2019s death.\u00a0The former student had blamed the English faculty for his academic failure, and targeted one of us.\u00a0\u00a0Some of us confessed we were afraid to be alone in an elevator with students.\u00a0\u00a0Others couldn\u2019t sleep, had difficulty walking past the site of the murder and felt physically ill.\u00a0\u00a0Everyone was distressed, sad or fearful but felt compelled for practical reasons to continue to work as we all lack paid personal or sick leave.\u00a0\u00a0Looking back at this, it\u2019s difficult to convey in words my shock over what happened as well as the school\u2019s callous handling of it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u2018La gal\u00e8re du vacataire\u2019<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I teach at three schools in the Paris metro region as an adjunct professor \u2013 what\u2019s called a \u2018vacataire\u2019 or \u2018charg\u00e9 d\u2019enseignement\u2019 in French vernacular.[ii]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0My students number 200 \u2013 although this fluctuates \u2013 and I teach about six courses annually \u2013 usually with several sections for each course and between 20 to 40 students in each section. My salary ranges from 39 to 45 euros an hour before taxes.\u00a0\u00a0After taxes, I earn less than 10,000 euros a year.\u00a0\u00a0If I take a day off because my child is ill, I\u2019m not paid.\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019m only remunerated for the time I\u2019m in the classroom, teaching.\u00a0\u00a0This does not include course design and preparation, grading, faculty meetings, nor do I receive transportation subsidies from the schools where I teach.\u00a0When I asked for a raise last year at one school, after three years of teaching there, I was told that \u2018vacataire\u2019 salaries are set by the university administration and, I learned, if the university is public, by the Minister of National Education.\u00a0\u00a0The majority of adjunct faculty in France, like me, earn approximately the same hourly wage as twenty years ago, a rate set by the government (41 euros\/hour).\u00a0\u00a0When our salaries are averaged out to include all the unpaid work we do, we make less than the national minimum wage (SMIC).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

On structural violence <\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

It\u2019s a common misperception that there are strong labor protections in France; although this is shifting with the advent of the \u2018yellow vest\u2019 movement in November 2018.\u00a0\u00a0Likewise, when we think of violence in schools or on university campuses, the United States comes to mind first, usually not European countries.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

In 2019, the majority of university professors in North America are part-time adjuncts; this is on trend in Europe as well.\u00a0\u00a0While France still has a higher ratio of tenured professors [\u2018ma\u00eetres de conf\u00e9rences\u2019] to adjuncts \u2013 slightly more than half compared to the US where about 75% of faculty are contingent \u2013 these posts are increasingly replaced by part-time adjuncts as people retire.\u00a0\u00a0Adjunct professors in France work without permanent contracts \u2013 and many of us work with no contract at all \u2013 or benefits (including access to unemployment insurance, maternity and sick leave, and paid holidays).\u00a0\u00a0Due to our status as \u2018vacataires\u2019, we are also often limited in the number of hours we can teach at one institution (96 hours per annum) so most of us teach at three or even four schools.\u00a0\u00a0We are routinely informed weeks or even mere days before the academic term begins whether courses and class schedules have been confirmed, changed or canceled; the number of students in classrooms increases each year; we wait months \u2013 sometimes until the following summer \u2013 to be paid; and endure persistently chaotic work environments.\u00a0\u00a0All of these examples constitute forms of structural violence.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u2018Low-paid seasonal workers with Ph.D.s\u2019<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

There have been a number of excellent articles and books published recently on the crisis of education in North America and the United Kingdom, extending from primary schools to university.\u00a0\u00a0Based on my own experiences as a teacher and a mother in France, the crisis extends to Europe where austerity measures slash budgets for public education.\u00a0\u00a0The crisis is \u2013 at least in part \u2013 an outcome of neoliberalism which imposes \u2018free market\u2019 models on schools, commodifying education, seeking \u2018returns\u2019 at the lowest possible cost, and transforms teachers \u2013 with advanced degrees \u2013 into temporary, low-paid labourers.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I have no hopeful solutions with which to conclude.\u00a0\u00a0In France, adjunct professors don\u2019t have union representation \u2013 which contributes to our situation.\u00a0\u00a0In recent years, adjuncts at a number of public universities across the country have protested, demanding better work conditions, permanent contracts and regular paychecks, including at public universities in Paris, Lille, Nantes, Lyon and Poitiers.\u00a0\u00a0As I write this, we enter \u2018Act 22\u2019 of the \u2018yellow vest\u2019 protests for economic justice.\u00a0Primary and secondary school teachers are protesting and striking regularly against draconian changes to the labor laws, and a women\u2019s strike was held on 8 March for equal pay (for the same work as men).\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s unclear if these actions will stop or even slow the neoliberal onslaught.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I\u2019m saddened by the death of my colleague \u2013 someone I knew for a short three months but whose murder still haunts me.\u00a0\u00a0In my view, it\u2019s crucial to emphasise the continuum between forms of structural violence which culminate in bursts of direct violence.\u00a0\u00a0Our struggles against different forms of structural violence must also be linked.\u00a0Neoliberal reforms, including the privatisation of public goods like education, transportation, infrastructure, and healthcare, that are being rammed down our throats in France, impact all of us whether we are primary school teachers, students, university adjuncts, railway workers, taxi drivers or airplane pilots.\u00a0\u00a0Organising, in (and outside of) unions, striking, refusing to cooperate in mass demonstrations of civil disobedience, appear to be our most effective and direct path, for now, toward a recognition of our collective demands.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\n\r\n\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

(Photo Credit: l’Humanit\u00e9<\/a>)<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Apr\u00e8s les angoisses du d\u00e9but d\u2019ann\u00e9eT\u2019as travaill\u00e9 trois mois, toujours pas pay\u00e9eEt les heures supprim\u00e9es, pas r\u00e9mun\u00e9r\u00e9esT\u2019auras pas de contrat, c\u2019est l\u2019EtatN\u2019attends pas le syndicat, il est pas l\u00e0Gare \u00e0 toi, sois toujours sympaC\u2019est le r\u00e8gne de l\u2019arbitraire, du pouvoir discr\u00e9tionnaireSi \u00e7a te pla\u00eet pas, tu peux rentrer chez ta m\u00e8reTu comprends pas, ouvre le […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":307,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[6342,6340,5237,6341],"class_list":["post-22852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-adjunct-faculty","tag-caroline-kelley","tag-france","tag-vacataire","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/307"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22852"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22852\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25888,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22852\/revisions\/25888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}