Teach with Premise

Are you a curious, community-focused, experienced teacher of adult learners? We want to hear from you!
Premise is actively recruiting a founding cohort of instructors who reflect our diverse student population.

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Build Premise Community

Each Premise course is conversation-based and designed around one “beautiful question.” A beautiful question is one that takes courage to ask and discuss and encourages learners to return to it again and again.


Premise instructors curate and lead learning experiences for adult learners who may not otherwise spend time with one another given today’s compartmentalized lives. Instructors need not be content-area experts or professors, but they do need to know how to build a classroom community, facilitate authentic and meaningful conversation about big ideas and texts, and make space for the voices of all adult students.

Embrace and Nurture Diversity

The Premise community is diverse by design. Instructors should be able to deftly “hold space” for an eighty-year-old and a twenty-year-old to talk with one another in a way that honors difference and fosters commonality. The same is true when considering students’ race, gender identities, and educational backgrounds.

 

Design a Course

At Premise, we start from a place of inquiry. Learners grapple with and learn more about a beautiful question through text. Students might read Camus to wonder about meaning and meaninglessness. They might read Audre Lorde to wonder about feminist power in the midst of patriarchy. We want instructors who know their stuff, but we don’t want a “sage on the stage.” Premise is not a place for professing and being didactic. Instructors are the architects of an egalitarian, joyful, and purposeful learning community. 

Premise courses are designed for the busy adult; instructors should consider the needs and realities of adult learners when proposing and planning a Premise course.

Lean into Your Expertise

When it comes to instructor expertise and course offerings, we are seeking range.

We want people who can teach questions and texts that get at core questions of the human experience. We welcome using nonfiction, fiction, and even film as “text” if a film is the best way to get at a beautiful question.

Lead and Guide Meaning-Making

Premise instructors encourage students to make text-to-self and text-to-world connections as part of the course, yet they also understand how to bring the conversation back to the text and focus on what is shared: the beautiful question and the reading. In doing so, instructors walk a delicate line between building a thriving learning community and encouraging even the most hesitant student voices to participate.

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Desired Qualifications & Commitment

  • Each course enrolls between 8 and 20 students;

  • Premise classes are scheduled for 1.5 to 2 hours per week;

  • We offer one-time, one-session offerings, but the majority of our classes are 3-6 weeks;

  • Instructors select the specific time and dates for their course;

  • Classes are offered during the following times in the instructor’s time zone: Monday through Thursday between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m.; Sundays between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. and also 5 p.m. and 8 p.m.;

  • Instructors are independent contractors who are paid according to the length of the course. Pay ranges from $200 (one-time session) to $1000 (6-week session);

  • We are looking for people with deep and/or wide-ranging teaching experience. Teaching comes in many shapes and sizes. Experiences might include teaching at the college-level, K-12, or community education. We welcome instructors who hold a PhD, but it is not required for consideration;

  • All 2021 course offerings will be held via Zoom. Instructors should be comfortable teaching with this format;

  • We are currently building Premise course offerings through December 2021.

 Interested in Teaching with Premise?

*A Note to Candidates: Studies have shown that women and people of color are less likely to apply for jobs unless they believe they check all the boxes listed in a job description. At Premise, we are most interested in finding the instructors that best match our mission and the kind of learning community we aim to build. The ideal candidate may be one who comes from a less traditional background. We encourage you to apply, even if you don't believe you meet all of the qualifications described above.