The onslaught begins

I just put all the piles of student assignments to be marked in a folder, so A) I have them all in one place and B) so I can schlep them to Advisement with me--and hope to hell there is NO ONE in advisement, so I can just put my head down and work. Thank God I don't have a committee meeting on Thursday: if I can get my fanny out of bed at 6 (instead of giving myself until 7, as I did this morning (bad girl)), and if I'm not inundated with students during my office hour (which I may be), I have a fighting chance of getting everything back to students when they need it for the next thing. I'm particularly concerned that the 102 classes get their logs and their self-evaluations back, both as prep for their papers that are due on Tuesday. They may well need the logs for their papers--and I want them to see an evaluation of their writing before they begin in earnest.

I am going to have to take a page from Paul's playbook and deny my impulse to comment. Well, unless the student has gone seriously astray: then a course correction may be needed. But the overall comments about how to improve quality? No time for that. If any student is curious about why his or her logs are getting the grades they are, it behooves that person to come see me to talk about it.

I was absolutely mobbed by students after 102. Several are already bumping up against attendance limits, falling seriously behind on the work, and I needed to issue a warning about that. Two had personal matters they wanted to go over. One student--seems very intelligent, is doing good work so far--asked for more time to do her log, as last night her father told her that his chemo hasn't been working and the treatment for his cancer needs to be more aggressive and include long stays in the hospital. I didn't get the sense that the story was bullshit, but one never knows. Still, as always, I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt. Sure, I said: take the time.

The other student with a personal issue has presented me with a stickier problem. Apparently, one of the male students in class went to her workplace looking for her (she was wearing her work shirt to class, with the name of the restaurant embroidered on the front). He went on Friday, when she wasn't there--and went again on Saturday, when he started asking her a lot of personal questions. She is, frankly, freaked out by it, as it feels very stalker-like to her. It is possible that the male student had nothing more in mind than an expression of friendly interest, but the behavior is, I agree, extreme. She feels she can't talk to him herself to ask him not to contact her outside of school, because she's afraid he'll simply deflect what she says, or turn it back on her: "That's now how I meant it" sort of response. I asked her if she wanted me to speak to him directly, tell him that she'd spoken to me--and she said yes.

Ooof. This is when I find it difficult to determine where the line is between "they're adults and need to take care of themselves" and "they're still very young and don't have very good skills at dealing with complex, difficult situations--so they need help." I do not want the young woman to drop the class, but she's already making noises that way, unless the male student leaves her alone. I don't much want the man to drop either, as he has potential as a very good student. But this extracurricular behavior is creating an atmosphere in the classroom that is not congenial to a focus on learning, and somehow I need to try to put a stop to it.

One never knows, though. This man in question seems reasonable and mature enough to understand that, whatever his intentions may have been, his behavior needs to change as it is adversely affecting someone else. But I barely know him--or her for that matter--so heaven knows how he'll respond to my talk with him. I will, of course, have to try to ensure that they're not in groups together for a while, at least until she starts to feel she can handle working with him as a mature adult, without the personal dis-ease getting in the way. But I can only manage what happens in my classroom: I'm powerless about the world outside, and I can't ensure that he leaves her alone. I hope that simply talking to him is enough to put a halt to it. And I won't try to strategize anything beyond that initial conversation. If more action is required, I'll figure it out then--but with any luck, nothing more will be needed.

Shifting to more pleasant ground, however: the class discussion today on "Ile Forest" was terrific. It's been a long time since I've had to stop a conversation in mid-flow because we were out of time--but the students were not only surprised that the period was over, I think many of them were disappointed. Honestly, I was too. I'd have loved to keep that animated discussion rolling for as long as they could maintain it.

A similar experience in Mystery today, though in that case, the students were clearly running out of gas in the last few minutes of the period. Still, I'd given them a lot of time for the class discussion, and it was pretty good. They're starting to begin to get a glimmer of an idea what they should be recording in their notes, so that's to the good. It will be fun to see where the class goes on Thursday, when we embark on part 2 of A Study in Scarlet. And on Thursday, we're scheduled to start watching the BBC/PBS Mystery Sherlock episode "A Study in Pink." However, I've scheduled three days for possible viewing, and it surely won't take all that, so if the discussion is rolling, I'll wait on the video until next week

I do have to report a slightly more unhappy student moment today. A young man from the Mystery class came to my office hour just before their first "summation" assignment was due to ask me if he was on the right track. He was--but he stopped at what he'd shown me, rather than continuing to work. He got a C, which isn't bad, of course, but he came to me during class to ask me what he'd done wrong. I suggested he meet with me again, as I couldn't really get into it in class--but, I said, you didn't do anything wrong, you simply didn't do enough. I think he's upset because he feels, "I did what you told me, and you gave me a bad grade." What I need to make clear--to the whole class, not just to him--is that simply doing what I tell them is enough for a C. If they want higher grades, they need to put a little more into their work.

So, today didn't have quite as much peach-juice down the chin, but it was still a good day, despite the few bumps. And it is now almost 8, which is when I'd hoped to be home, so I'd have even a tiny shot at getting into bed before midnight. Therefore, I am flinging this up on the blog unread (which is happening more often than not these days) and making a mad dash for the door.