A Turn-around

Decompressing again at the end of the day, still in the office, telling myself I really need to go home. I need loooooong wind-down time before bed, and I have to get to bed early tonight as I have a meeting at 8:30 a.m. tomorrow. That means I should get up at 5:30: ungodly early for me. I'm doubtful I'll be able to make myself do that; I'll probably go for 6 and try to truncate the routine. (Scintillating stuff, yes?) The meeting is of a committee I have mixed feelings about, too: our department's Assessment Committee (I'm also on the college-wide version). I got assigned to the departmental one by the chair of English because I was chairing another departmental committee (or two at the time? I forget (and how many times can I say "departmental" in one sentence? I'm sure I can squeeze in a few more...)). I'm not chairing anything any more, but somehow I'm still on departmental Assessment. I keep wondering if I can beg off--and yet (here we go), I actually am concerned about what's going on, and being the control freak that I am....

But getting to the title of this post, remember the "I'll bring a gun" student from Monday's post? Complete turn-around in the kid's attitude today. He came to class with his reading journals, came to me to tell me that he'd done his best but wasn't sure he was getting it right, was participating to the best of his ability in class discussion, listened very carefully to his group mates (all of whom are smart, smart, smart) and shared what he had--even apologized when his phone went off; he'd forgotten to turn it off (which I do all the time, so I can't fault him for that). I still am not sanguine about his chances for success, but now the issue is simply that I don't think he's ready for the difficulty of work I think appropriate at the 200 level. But as long as he stays on his best behavior, I'll do what I can to help. It's possible he'll come through, but more likely, he could potentially earn a mercy D at the end of the semester.

And also in 229, a student showed up today for the first time. Immediate impression is that he's smart and capable, but I always worry when students come in after we've already flung ourselves into the deep end. Very, very rarely do they make it; usually they get caught in a rip-tide of previous assignments they're trying to make up while the new assignments keep piling up in front of them, and they drown. I hope this young man makes it. As I said, he seems smart--and, more important, cheerfully willing.

On top of that, at the end of my 101, a young woman introduced herself to me and wanted me to allow her to switch from another professor's 101 into mine. This was also her first day in class, and the other professor told her she'd already missed too much and should withdraw. Honestly, I think that's her best bet (and I support my colleague in her refusal to allow the student to continue in her class). Plus I'm not entirely sure the registrar will allow her to switch at this stage. But I made her a deal: she needs to read the (huge and terrifying) syllabus very carefully and then seriously consider whether she believes she can get caught up and keep up. I told her the world won't come to an end if she doesn't take 101 this semester--and her education won't be significantly delayed. She shouldn't switch into my section only to end up withdrawing anyway. Caveat, caveat. But if she reads the syllabus, thinks about it carefully overnight, and tells me tomorrow that she wants to try, I'll allow her in. Again, in my experience, her chances of success are awfully damned slim (I should only be so slender), but I'll give her the chance and let her think I'm nice. (Hah! Little does she know the "take no prisoners" Professor Payne!) Who knows, she may be the exception to prove the rule.

The class discussion in 101 was a little tough today. The students were interested (for the most part; I did see some drooping eyelids) but they were reticent to bring up their questions, comments, etc. Still, we got some important issues out for future consideration, and overall it seems they are starting to herd in the right direction. Their reading journals will reveal a lot about what they got--and didn't. I'll be interested to see how different tomorrow's 101s are. William pointed out that almost invariably the sections we like at the beginning of the semester end up being difficult and vice versa. I'm reserving judgment on all of 'em. I won't fully know what I'm dealing with until I get their first papers.

I am feeling a lot better about 229, however. There are some seriously smart cookies in there--not just James (student from last semester's Nature in Lit) but at least five others as well. That's plenty as a catalyst. I've had classes where all the really bright students drop by the wayside for one reason or another (and youch does that hurt), but if I can keep the smart ones plus a few more through December, this could be a lot of fun.

I'm very much aware that for a few semesters now I've shifted away from the "fucking little ingrates" feeling about students to a position of more compassion. I also am a LOT more willing to let the resistant, the incapable, the paralytically lazy deal with the consequences of their deficiencies. (You don't want to do the work? No skin off my nose. Go enjoy yourself somewhere else, away from my class, and I wish you the best of luck.) I see better that most respond out of fear of failure, fear that they will be inadequate. And yes, most of them are kids. (Apologies, darlings, but even the few in their 20s are not truly adults, though some are more mature than others.) I do get the occasional genuinely adult student--as in over 30--but most are closer to 18, so they are not fully formed and still resist the hard stuff that comes with being an adult (or a good adult anyway), like knowing why you hold the opinions you do, and what the consequences of your choices are--even that everything you do is a choice and has consequences of one sort or another. (I'll try to remember to talk about how they see the word "consequences" in some other post; not tonight.) But that's my job: I tear open their minds and move all the boundaries way further out than they may find comfortable. But some of them really get off on it, and that's where the joy of teaching comes in.