Jeanette Tucker

Living Skills and Early Childhood Development teacher Jeanette Tucker is also employed as an adjunct professor—someone who is hired part time on a contractual basis. She began working at De Anza College in 2021 and San Jose City College in 2022, teaching social psychology and general psychology respectively.

She explains that she started working three jobs for financial reasons. “I had two kids, and we had decided with our first kid that my husband would stay home, so I’m the only income,” she said. “We cannot afford to exist without more income.”

Despite working full time at Gunn, Tucker has been able to balance all of her jobs while teaching at the three schools. “[The] jobs are online jobs,” she said. “One of the classes is asynchronous, so I just create content and put it online. The other class is synchronous, but it’s through Zoom. It is [also] not during the Gunn [school] day.”

While teaching at different levels and institutions, Tucker has also gained new insights into the differences between K–12 and college education. “In K–12, there’s a lot more red tape, and a lot more of what you can and can’t do since you’re dealing with minors,” she said. “[In college,] we can talk about [topics] that are highly sensitive and difficult, because presumably everybody is an adult.”

Working as an adjunct professor has allowed Tucker to teach psychology, her background. “It’s a subject I would love to teach, but in high school, you have to have a social studies credential, which I do not have,” she said.

Working as an adjunct professor has allowed Tucker to teach psychology, her background. “It’s a subject I would love to teach, but in high school, you have to have a social studies credential, which I do not have,” she said. Conversations with students are the most rewarding part of her job. “They have been very enlightening and I have learned quite a bit from my students,” she said.