Oh. My. God.  When I started teaching Spanish 40 years ago, the technology I had to handle was a hardbound (not a paperback) textbook and a piece of chalk.  No screen, slide projector, in-classroom tv, much less any computer built into a console at my desk.

I was great at Spanish, and that was the focus of my work.  I was nominated for teacher of the year twice.  20 years ago I added teaching nursing classes on the treatment of terminal patients into the mix, but I've enjoyed continuing to teach Spanish all along, too.

Today none of that mattered.  Now it's all about technology, and Spanish takes second or third or even fourth place.  I'm "teaching" a Spanish class online, if you call this teaching any more.  Though teaching Spanish is supposed to be about communicating through language, it's become a mockery of communication online, just like a lot of things are nowadays through cellphones instead of in person.

I am humble enough to say that when I set up my online Spanish course, it seems I bungled some due dates in our online instruction program.  It's hard for me to keep numbers straight in these computer programs.  But the over reaction from adminstrators above and students below about it today sandwiching me in the middle was just silly. 

I never mistreat people like I was mistreated.  One of my new students took a screen shot of my mistaken due date online and sent it to my community college dean instead of even  asking me about it.  We were all off to the races after that playing phone tag, text tag, and email tag all day long, with the screen shot being sent to my department head and others to embarass me before I even heard about it.

Another new student wanted to do all of the whole semester's exercises ahead of time now at their convenience without  waiting week to week like the rest of his classmates, and was upset when I couldn't cater to him.  He threatened to drop the class if I didn't, and that got to my dean and my department head all over again to embarass me.

I played phone tag, texting tag, and email tag about all of this with my community college bosses and these students the entire day long until my online Spanish instruction provider kindly stepped in, treating me with a little respect, and fixed it for me.  Bless him.

I had already planned to retire to Mexico come the end of this year's classes.  I have contracts with two authors there to translate their novels from Spanish to English, since Spanish is what I know.  As to being fluent in this computerese, I feel like I'm being expected to pilot several airliners while also working the tower as air traffic controller, too, besides teaching Spanish.  I'm clearly obsolete in today's computerized instruction.  My bosses and my students made that clear.  40 years of teaching counts for nothing, it's all what fancy online computer program have you shown me lately.  

Mexico, where I grew up, is a less modern country, granted, and that results in poverty and illness, true.  But it's also more traditional and has some respect for elders still, like some other older cultures outside of the USA still do.  It will be nice to be treated with some respect 96 days from now.

In the meantime, please support me through my career's last 3 months as I humbly accept my obsolescence.  I've tripled the enrollment in the Spanish program I took over 10 years ago even while my community college has lost 10% of its general enrollment and it continues to fall.  Yet my bosses behave as if no good deed of mine should go unpunished.

I think my administrators have given up on trying to stop the steady dropping enrollment at our school.  From what I see among my peer coworkers of my generation, they intend to make ends meet with their budget otherwise.  Rather than give up their higher administrative salaries or finding ways to attract more students to pay for them, it looks like they have another financial plan.  From how they've started treating coworkers my age, the plan is to take away offices, make technical demands without training us, and generally force older full time faculty like me with salaries and benefits to retire early.  That way we can be replaced cheaply by part time adjunct faculty who are only paid by the course with no benefits.

I get it that it's all about capitalism and market forces and that none of us is indispensable.  I accept that there comes a time to pass the baton to the next generation.  I'm ready to do that asap, which happens to be July 1st, when my retirement pension kicks in.  Still, to be done this way after teaching for 40 years leaves me very hurt and discouraged.  I live alone, I have kidney damage from a doctor who overprescribed Seroquel for my PTSD nightmares, so I'm at risk for COVID-19 and forced to teach online instead of face to face now like I do best. 

Your support, which I admit is also online, is all of the support I get at the end of the day.  Support very, very welcome, then, as I stare down these last 96 humbling and humiliating days that confirm, day by day, how I must be going as soon as I'm vested in my pension plan July 1st.

What a sad way to go with all of this stress and anxiety added to my PTSD, huh?