For once, I misread my calendar to my benefit. I was absolutely certain that I had a 10:00 seminar hours meeting followed immediately by a department meeting, followed immediately by class, followed immediately by P&B, followed immediately by class--and despite my best efforts yesterday, I didn't get all the student assignments marked and all the reading done for today's classes. I was more concerned about the enormous stack of stuff for the SF class, which for some reason was piled much higher than the stuff for M&D--and I did at least get all of that marked yesterday, and the requisite chapters of Windup Girl read, but at about midnight, as I was trying to force myself through just a few more chapters of Track of the Cat, I realized I wasn't going to make it: I was going to fall asleep, no matter what I did. I set the alarm for six--and when it went off, I said, "Nope," and reset it for seven. I didn't have a plan for what I would do in order to at least get the reading done--but the heavens smiled upon me: the back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back day is next Thursday.
O frabjous day!
I recorded grades for SF. I read chapters for M&D. I didn't get the assignments read for M&D, but enh, whatever. They'll be on top of the stack for next week. I'm so close to caught up I can almost taste it.
Or as caught up as I get. As for today's P&B, I was furious at first, because I'd killed myself--and not marked student assignments--in order to read all the promo folders, and we ended up barely talking about them today. But it turned out there were more important things on the agenda, so, I guess I'm just ahead of the game for next week's meeting, when we really will talk about the promo folders, when everyone has had a chance to read them all.
I honestly have no idea what I do with a good percentage of the time I spend working. I know I actually am working: I'm not watching funny cat videos or playing computer games, but what I am doing escapes me. I know that one thing I'll be doing over the next five days will be answering student e-mails: the SF students are going to be working on their revisions, and they don't have a lot of options for times to sit down and work with me.
I did run the "reality check" with them today: I had them get out the grade calculation sheet (and brought extras, for those who didn't have one with them); I gave them their cards, so they could record their grades (as most of them haven't been, and the few who have need to check that what they have matches what I have); and I put on the board both what they need to have to pass and what they need to have to get a grade that transfers. Unlike what I did with M&D, I also figured out what they need to earn on the rest of their assignments in order to keep that grade: in order just to pass, they need to have at least 560 points right now, and they need to earn at least 22 points on all the remaining reading responses plus the final self evaluation, and earn at least a 220 on all three papers (revised essay 1, essay 2--either the first time out or revised--and essay 3, which can't be revised). All the numbers for a C are slightly higher, obviously. I told them that if they're not really close to those numbers, if they don't have a realistic chance of catching up, they'd do better to withdraw. They don't need to hurry (I probably shouldn't have said that), but they should consider whether their time and energy would be better spent toward classes where they have a better shot at a grade that will pay off better for them.
I sort of have the feeling I'm going to be handing out a lot of "mercy D's" in those electives. A lot of students just need to pass: they want the grade so they can get their associate's degree and get the hell out of here. Fair enough. Turn in the work--all the work--and take your best shot at it, and I'll give you the D, even if you didn't really earn it.
But the poor sweet thing who couldn't make head nor tail out of the reading did withdraw today. I'm relieved. I think she's relieved. I'm happy to help her find an elective in which she can do well and have fun. I wish we offered basket-weaving. I'm not kidding: it's actually not easy, and it would be very therapeutic for a lot of the students. Meditative. Calming. Producing a thing of beauty, having a tangible result of one's work--like ceramics class. Ah well.
M&D was sort of a bust today. A lot of the students hadn't done the reading, or had barely skimmed it--and it's ridiculously easy, so they're just being fucking lazy. But I did tell them that their revisions had to be in my hands in hard copy now, uploaded to Turnitin tonight, no late papers accepted, end of story. I did allow one student to finish up tonight, leave the hard copy on the office door tomorrow--but the rest? Nope. Ship sailed. I'll be the same way with the SF students on Tuesday. The opportunity to revise is enough of a gift; don't look for extensions on that. And the super-bright student who's read everything in Portuguese was conspicuously absent today--and if I recall, he submitted a "place holder" essay, so he's now got 50 points for that 400 point assignment. I need to talk with him. I feel he's taking advantage of the fact that he's smart and knows a lot, and it's starting to really piss me off. He's going to fail the class at this rate, because he feels none of the rules should apply to him. Au contraire. I was like that as an undergrad, and I needed to get a few swift kicks to the backside to persuade me that I had to follow the rules, just like all the boring, average kids. I'm now passing along the fine tradition of knocking arrogant little brats down a peg or three. It's good for us brats to get knocked down some.
Not that that's an entirely pleasant note to end on, but honestly, I don't feel terrible about it. I hate to admit it, but part of me almost looks forward to it--not because I want to hurt the young man, but because I know what he needs and why, and that I'm actually doing something beneficial for him. Ouchy, but beneficial. And now I'm going to do something beneficial for myself and start to slowly gather myself together to roll out of here for the weekend. I am beyond tired (no wonder I misread my calendar: it's a wonder I can read anything at all), so I'm going to decant myself into my car before I end up in a little sloppy mess on the carpet here in the office.
Thursday, November 12, 2015
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Another lovely student mentoring moment
After the 101 class today, I met with a student who is in Mystery and Detective Fiction and who was in my 101 last fall. She's very shy, very insecure--and extremely intelligent. This is the second time she's been in to see me about her thoughts regarding where she might go after Nassau; she's thinking about going to a small, private women's college, which I think is a great idea for her. I only spent one year at Chatham College, in Pittsburgh, but it was the best year of my undergraduate education, infinitely better than the rest of the years put together: I didn't have another educational experience anywhere close until grad school, and now, in hindsight, I wish I'd stayed there for the full four years. (If they hadn't decided to go co-ed and become a university, I'd suggest she go there, in fact. The place had--and surely still has--its problems, but it was still wonderful.) Paul was deeply involved in the craziness of his role on the Academic Senate Executive Committee--that's a topic for another day, I think--but he couldn't help but overhear part of our conversation, and he popped up from what he was writing to suggest a book for her: something about liberal arts schools people don't know about that can transform your life. I'm delighted he did: she's the kind of person, and student, who doesn't need to be focused on a career track just yet. She needs to be in an environment where her mind and soul will be valued and nurtured, and that means some nontraditional, off-kilter, groovy liberal arts school where people talk about deep philosophical ideas and dress like hippies and don't give a crap what anyone else thinks.
What I love about talking with her is that when we first start talking, she tends to be very hesitant and shy, has a hard time making eye contact: her voice and hands are on the verge of shaking. Then, as we talk, she relaxes, she starts to make more eye contact; she starts to laugh a little; her hands are calmer. I don't know much about her history, but I think it's been pretty brutal--and from what she said today, I think it's included serious misdiagnoses of her psychological states. She said she's been told she has Asperger's syndrome, and it seems quite clear to me that she is nowhere on the autism spectrum. She may have severe social anxieties--but I have a hunch they were induced by something in her background, not something in her brain chemistry. We talked about creating our own narrative of who we are--and I said yes, that's what we do. All of us: we make up a story of who we are. Sometimes there's an external narrative that is imposed on us; sometimes we incorporate that narrative--but we can also choose to change it, to create another narrative and work to adjust our internal sense of who we are to match the new external narrative that we want to make real. It isn't easy (and there's only so much we can truly change)--but it's all still a story. And in terms of the narrative she tells the schools she wants to transfer to, it's up to her how she wants to frame that narrative, how much of her past she wants to relate, and the way she chooses to relate it.
Conversations like that one, however, do make me think about that career change I keep mulling over, the one that means I'd have to go back to earn another degree so I could hang out my shingle as a therapist. I'm not qualified to do the kind of work with that young woman that I'd really like to do, but I want her to do that kind of work with someone--someone really good. Not that I necessarily would be, but that's sure what she deserves.
Radical shift of gears here: I whipped through the last four promotion folders I needed to look at before Thursday's P&B meeting. My evaluation is much more sketchy than I'd like, but I'm not letting myself feel guilty. This is a first submission of the damned things: we'll see them several more times before the final versions head over to college wide P&T (promotion and tenure). And the only ones I really need to pay close attention to, I did: the three I'm responsible for mentoring. The rest, I did a good enough job on. Next week. I have to look at the sabbatical folders again: there is some rush on those, as they have to go over to the college-wide committee at the end of the month, but there also aren't many of them, so, well, whew on that.
The 101 class went OK. The most hard-working young woman wasn't there--she's now missed two classes in a row, and I know she's freaking out about it, but she's been having serious health problems, so she and I need to talk about what to do. Another young woman was there, but she hasn't been turning in 90% of the work, despite multiple warnings. I thought about warning her again--or even telling her, flat out, that she's going to fail--but for now I've decided to let it ride. She's been warned. Maybe she needs the harsh lesson of getting the F at the end. The young man who has been unable to grasp some of the basics all along--who didn't understand that he plagiarized, why what he did was plagiarism, that he couldn't do it again without it being considered plagiarism again, that plagiarism would earn him a zero (I could go on with all the various ways I tried to convey the problem to him)--stayed after class to see if he's going to pass or not. I probably should have simply said, "No, you're not." The honest truth is that he's managed to pull out low-pass grades just enough that he might be able to squeeze out a D. Can he get a C? Highly unlikely. I don't know why I wasn't more fierce with him: I've known pretty much since the first week that his chances of doing well were slim at best, and he doesn't add anything at all to the class discussion or dynamics, so it won't hurt the class any to have him gone--but I'm not just cutting him loose. I'll let him finish this paper--but after that, I really should tell him he can't get a C, even if mathematically it's possible, and I should get him out. If I were to keep only the students I think are honestly capable of doing the work and getting something real out of the class, I'd end up with five. Five.
I've also decided that I am not going to allow more time for the revisions for the SF class. As I said yesterday, the axe really does need to fall, and truly, the sooner the better, for them as well as for me. I'm going to take the huge stack of homework home with me (homework in more than one sense, I guess), and I'm going to do the same calculation I did for the M&D students so when I see them in class on Thursday, I can have them figure their grades and see where they stand. That way, the ones who do the revision will know as soon as they see their revision grades whether the new mark is enough to pull them into passing territory or not. Unlike what I did with M&D, I may also give them two bench marks: this is enough to pass; this is enough to transfer. (A D passes; a C transfers.)
Maybe that will chase some of them out.
I also was thinking about sending actual "snail mail" letters to the students who have simply stopped coming to class to remind them that if they don't actually officially withdraw, they'll get an Unofficial Withdrawal, which calculates in their GPA as an F--but no. Again, they may need the harsh lesson. Grow up, kiddies. Take a little responsibility for your own lives here. I'm not chasing you around to be sure you're taking care of your own education.
There are other little niggly bits of flotsam that I've been trying to sweep off my desk: getting some information pulled together to support the decision to offer advising/mentoring to honors students (who may be great students but whose lives outside of school are often train wrecks), starting--already--to think about getting ready to teach Modern American Poetry in the spring, including getting a little booklet of the poems copied in advance instead of (as I've done in the past) copying the poems as I go along; getting copies made of the rest of the readings for the 101 class this semester, plus the final reading for the SF class--though I want to wait a bit for that, as I'm not sure how many will be left by then; getting a copy of my Nature in Lit reader and syllabus to Virginia so it can be considered as a potential Honors course (another way to potentially get it to run); contacting the Distance Ed VP about getting a stipend to develop either Native American Lit or Nature in Lit as online courses ... oh, there's always more to do.
But for now, I'm just going to decant all the student assignments into a shoulder bag to schlep home and get out of here. I was sort of hoping the BOT meeting, where Paul is being held hostage, would miraculously end early and he'd be back here so we could go out for a drink together, but I have a sinking feeling he'll be there until some ungodly hour after midnight. That's a whole circle of hell Dante didn't know about: BOT meetings. I love my friend, and I'm sorry he has to suffer through that, especially as he's done nothing to deserve the damnation: he's a good man, and he does excellent work at a horrifically difficult job. I wish I could do more than remind him from time to time how great he is, and how much he needs to let roll off his back. But much as I love him, I'm not waiting around for him. I'm going home.
What I love about talking with her is that when we first start talking, she tends to be very hesitant and shy, has a hard time making eye contact: her voice and hands are on the verge of shaking. Then, as we talk, she relaxes, she starts to make more eye contact; she starts to laugh a little; her hands are calmer. I don't know much about her history, but I think it's been pretty brutal--and from what she said today, I think it's included serious misdiagnoses of her psychological states. She said she's been told she has Asperger's syndrome, and it seems quite clear to me that she is nowhere on the autism spectrum. She may have severe social anxieties--but I have a hunch they were induced by something in her background, not something in her brain chemistry. We talked about creating our own narrative of who we are--and I said yes, that's what we do. All of us: we make up a story of who we are. Sometimes there's an external narrative that is imposed on us; sometimes we incorporate that narrative--but we can also choose to change it, to create another narrative and work to adjust our internal sense of who we are to match the new external narrative that we want to make real. It isn't easy (and there's only so much we can truly change)--but it's all still a story. And in terms of the narrative she tells the schools she wants to transfer to, it's up to her how she wants to frame that narrative, how much of her past she wants to relate, and the way she chooses to relate it.
Conversations like that one, however, do make me think about that career change I keep mulling over, the one that means I'd have to go back to earn another degree so I could hang out my shingle as a therapist. I'm not qualified to do the kind of work with that young woman that I'd really like to do, but I want her to do that kind of work with someone--someone really good. Not that I necessarily would be, but that's sure what she deserves.
Radical shift of gears here: I whipped through the last four promotion folders I needed to look at before Thursday's P&B meeting. My evaluation is much more sketchy than I'd like, but I'm not letting myself feel guilty. This is a first submission of the damned things: we'll see them several more times before the final versions head over to college wide P&T (promotion and tenure). And the only ones I really need to pay close attention to, I did: the three I'm responsible for mentoring. The rest, I did a good enough job on. Next week. I have to look at the sabbatical folders again: there is some rush on those, as they have to go over to the college-wide committee at the end of the month, but there also aren't many of them, so, well, whew on that.
The 101 class went OK. The most hard-working young woman wasn't there--she's now missed two classes in a row, and I know she's freaking out about it, but she's been having serious health problems, so she and I need to talk about what to do. Another young woman was there, but she hasn't been turning in 90% of the work, despite multiple warnings. I thought about warning her again--or even telling her, flat out, that she's going to fail--but for now I've decided to let it ride. She's been warned. Maybe she needs the harsh lesson of getting the F at the end. The young man who has been unable to grasp some of the basics all along--who didn't understand that he plagiarized, why what he did was plagiarism, that he couldn't do it again without it being considered plagiarism again, that plagiarism would earn him a zero (I could go on with all the various ways I tried to convey the problem to him)--stayed after class to see if he's going to pass or not. I probably should have simply said, "No, you're not." The honest truth is that he's managed to pull out low-pass grades just enough that he might be able to squeeze out a D. Can he get a C? Highly unlikely. I don't know why I wasn't more fierce with him: I've known pretty much since the first week that his chances of doing well were slim at best, and he doesn't add anything at all to the class discussion or dynamics, so it won't hurt the class any to have him gone--but I'm not just cutting him loose. I'll let him finish this paper--but after that, I really should tell him he can't get a C, even if mathematically it's possible, and I should get him out. If I were to keep only the students I think are honestly capable of doing the work and getting something real out of the class, I'd end up with five. Five.
I've also decided that I am not going to allow more time for the revisions for the SF class. As I said yesterday, the axe really does need to fall, and truly, the sooner the better, for them as well as for me. I'm going to take the huge stack of homework home with me (homework in more than one sense, I guess), and I'm going to do the same calculation I did for the M&D students so when I see them in class on Thursday, I can have them figure their grades and see where they stand. That way, the ones who do the revision will know as soon as they see their revision grades whether the new mark is enough to pull them into passing territory or not. Unlike what I did with M&D, I may also give them two bench marks: this is enough to pass; this is enough to transfer. (A D passes; a C transfers.)
Maybe that will chase some of them out.
I also was thinking about sending actual "snail mail" letters to the students who have simply stopped coming to class to remind them that if they don't actually officially withdraw, they'll get an Unofficial Withdrawal, which calculates in their GPA as an F--but no. Again, they may need the harsh lesson. Grow up, kiddies. Take a little responsibility for your own lives here. I'm not chasing you around to be sure you're taking care of your own education.
There are other little niggly bits of flotsam that I've been trying to sweep off my desk: getting some information pulled together to support the decision to offer advising/mentoring to honors students (who may be great students but whose lives outside of school are often train wrecks), starting--already--to think about getting ready to teach Modern American Poetry in the spring, including getting a little booklet of the poems copied in advance instead of (as I've done in the past) copying the poems as I go along; getting copies made of the rest of the readings for the 101 class this semester, plus the final reading for the SF class--though I want to wait a bit for that, as I'm not sure how many will be left by then; getting a copy of my Nature in Lit reader and syllabus to Virginia so it can be considered as a potential Honors course (another way to potentially get it to run); contacting the Distance Ed VP about getting a stipend to develop either Native American Lit or Nature in Lit as online courses ... oh, there's always more to do.
But for now, I'm just going to decant all the student assignments into a shoulder bag to schlep home and get out of here. I was sort of hoping the BOT meeting, where Paul is being held hostage, would miraculously end early and he'd be back here so we could go out for a drink together, but I have a sinking feeling he'll be there until some ungodly hour after midnight. That's a whole circle of hell Dante didn't know about: BOT meetings. I love my friend, and I'm sorry he has to suffer through that, especially as he's done nothing to deserve the damnation: he's a good man, and he does excellent work at a horrifically difficult job. I wish I could do more than remind him from time to time how great he is, and how much he needs to let roll off his back. But much as I love him, I'm not waiting around for him. I'm going home.
Monday, November 9, 2015
The weirdness continues
It's understandable that the work in Advisement is starting to heat up, so I can't count on having time there to get student assignments marked--but it was tremendously bizarre to have a parade of students through my office during my office hour today. That really never happens. I even had a student waiting while I had someone talking with me--and I don't think that's happened since I stopped doing formal, scheduled conferences with students about papers.
One student came because he needs a good grade in the SF class in order to stay on the football team--and he never handed in the hard copy of his paper. I'm giving him a big break on that (he should get a zero), but what he wrote is pretty much a train wreck, and I didn't give him much in the way of advice, as I wasn't going to actually read and comment on his paper at this point. I do think I'm going to give the whole class a little longer to complete their revisions, however. I'm half tempted to just make the final date for revisions the same for both the first essays--except that just prolongs the agony for so many students who need to know that they're not going to make it. The need to allow the axe to fall is the best reason I can think of for not moving the date for revisions. I don't know. I'm still thinking about it. I'll look at the assignment schedule between now and Thursday and see what makes sense.
But because of the parade of students through Advisement and then through my office hour, I didn't get all the mechanics stuff marked for the 101 students prior to class. It turned out OK: I gave them the reading they'll need to have done for next week so they could get started on that, and we still had time to do some work on mechanics anyway. Tomorrow's going to be a little weird and bumpy, as they're finishing up essay 2 and starting essay 3 at the same time--concrete proof that multitasking is a myth, y'all--but they only have to manage that through next Monday, and then it's all about their final essays.
And if that isn't evidence that we're on the "hold onto your hat and scream" part of the semester, I don't know what is.
But I want to bounce back to talking about those students who came to see me during the office hour. One was a lovely young woman who was in one of my 102s back in 2013: she's applying for transfer into music schools (she's a music major here) and she needs a letter of recommendation--and we got into a great conversation. I was enjoying it so much I almost forgot that I actually had a class to go teach. Just before I saw here, I was talking to a student from the Mystery class; he came to see me once before, worried about his grade--but he's not just worried about his grade: he's worried on a much deeper, more philosophical level. He realizes that his grades are making him think less of himself as a person, that he's comparing himself to his sister and feeling diminished by comparison, that school feels like a prison to him but when he can read the way he wants to, he feels free and happy and excited about what he's learning. He wants to be a Marine, but that's a means to an end for him. That plan frightens me, of course: I don't want him to be damaged in all the ways that being in combat can damage a person, physically and psychologically, spiritually. But I do want him to do what his soul calls on him to do--and right now, I don't think that includes being in the classroom. Because my former student was waiting, I had to cut my conversation with him short, but I encouraged him to come back to talk to me next week, and I very much hope he does. This is the kind of "mentoring" that matters: it may not keep him at this campus--which is what our administrators see as the whole point of mentoring--but it will help him find his way as a young adult, and that will make him think of this place as a place he values, his experience here as one that mattered to him, all of which is far more important in the long run. Or that's what I think, anyway.
I'm on the fence about whether to get up extra early tomorrow to try to get a jump on marking assignments tomorrow. I don't officially have an office hour, but I will be meeting with a student from the SF class who plagiarized--much to my surprise and great disappointment, as he's a diligent, hard-working student and doesn't seem the type to cheat, so I really want to understand what happened. That conversation will no doubt take a while, and there's bound to be quite the crowd in Advisement again, so my time to work on assignments will be minimal unless I do get up early--but, well, I just kinda don't want to. Still, I do have Wednesday off: I won't have to set an alarm at all, though I will have to take work home with me. Hmmm. Well, we'll see.
For now, I'm calling it a day. (What else should I call it; a banana?)
One student came because he needs a good grade in the SF class in order to stay on the football team--and he never handed in the hard copy of his paper. I'm giving him a big break on that (he should get a zero), but what he wrote is pretty much a train wreck, and I didn't give him much in the way of advice, as I wasn't going to actually read and comment on his paper at this point. I do think I'm going to give the whole class a little longer to complete their revisions, however. I'm half tempted to just make the final date for revisions the same for both the first essays--except that just prolongs the agony for so many students who need to know that they're not going to make it. The need to allow the axe to fall is the best reason I can think of for not moving the date for revisions. I don't know. I'm still thinking about it. I'll look at the assignment schedule between now and Thursday and see what makes sense.
But because of the parade of students through Advisement and then through my office hour, I didn't get all the mechanics stuff marked for the 101 students prior to class. It turned out OK: I gave them the reading they'll need to have done for next week so they could get started on that, and we still had time to do some work on mechanics anyway. Tomorrow's going to be a little weird and bumpy, as they're finishing up essay 2 and starting essay 3 at the same time--concrete proof that multitasking is a myth, y'all--but they only have to manage that through next Monday, and then it's all about their final essays.
And if that isn't evidence that we're on the "hold onto your hat and scream" part of the semester, I don't know what is.
But I want to bounce back to talking about those students who came to see me during the office hour. One was a lovely young woman who was in one of my 102s back in 2013: she's applying for transfer into music schools (she's a music major here) and she needs a letter of recommendation--and we got into a great conversation. I was enjoying it so much I almost forgot that I actually had a class to go teach. Just before I saw here, I was talking to a student from the Mystery class; he came to see me once before, worried about his grade--but he's not just worried about his grade: he's worried on a much deeper, more philosophical level. He realizes that his grades are making him think less of himself as a person, that he's comparing himself to his sister and feeling diminished by comparison, that school feels like a prison to him but when he can read the way he wants to, he feels free and happy and excited about what he's learning. He wants to be a Marine, but that's a means to an end for him. That plan frightens me, of course: I don't want him to be damaged in all the ways that being in combat can damage a person, physically and psychologically, spiritually. But I do want him to do what his soul calls on him to do--and right now, I don't think that includes being in the classroom. Because my former student was waiting, I had to cut my conversation with him short, but I encouraged him to come back to talk to me next week, and I very much hope he does. This is the kind of "mentoring" that matters: it may not keep him at this campus--which is what our administrators see as the whole point of mentoring--but it will help him find his way as a young adult, and that will make him think of this place as a place he values, his experience here as one that mattered to him, all of which is far more important in the long run. Or that's what I think, anyway.
I'm on the fence about whether to get up extra early tomorrow to try to get a jump on marking assignments tomorrow. I don't officially have an office hour, but I will be meeting with a student from the SF class who plagiarized--much to my surprise and great disappointment, as he's a diligent, hard-working student and doesn't seem the type to cheat, so I really want to understand what happened. That conversation will no doubt take a while, and there's bound to be quite the crowd in Advisement again, so my time to work on assignments will be minimal unless I do get up early--but, well, I just kinda don't want to. Still, I do have Wednesday off: I won't have to set an alarm at all, though I will have to take work home with me. Hmmm. Well, we'll see.
For now, I'm calling it a day. (What else should I call it; a banana?)
Thursday, November 5, 2015
I must be doing something wrong
I don't know, maybe over the sabbatical I had a personality transplant that I wasn't aware of or something, but I cannot seem to get rid of students from my literature electives. I was sure that, once I gave the papers back to them, they'd leave in droves--but they're not: they're still there. I think I persuaded the student who can't read the books in the SF class that she really needs to withdraw, but it was a hell of a battle. There are a number of students I was certain would respond to their grades with the usual, "Fuck you, you bitch" attitude and leave--and instead, they're coming up to me with trembling earnestness, asking what they can do to improve.
Where did I put my bitchitude? Where's my monster outfit? Who kept the dragon in her cave? What in the sam-hill is going on here? If they continue to hang on, I'm going to be stuck grading all those papers all semester. That just cannot be cosmically right. It really can't.
But both classes did go well today, which is nice. They're really generally pretty great classes, in terms of what happens in the course of the 75 minutes when we meet. The SF students are a step or two better than M&D in terms of carrying the discussion out of their small groups and into the class as a whole, but they're both fine--and fun. I like that they're how I end my weeks.
Shifting back to the attrition issue, however, it is indeed ironic that the one class where I'm losing students is the 101, where I didn't have enough to lose. (Oh, and I just remembered, Mr. Over-Enthusiastic "But I was sick"? On the day when the paper was due, the other students told me they'd seen him, just before class started, downstairs in the food court. Must have been an awfully sudden illness.)
In any event, I did get the papers graded for the SF class, barely squeaked the last one out before my meeting at 11:30--but the meeting didn't fill the entire time before class at 1, so I had a little time to manage some e-mail correspondence and manage a few other things. There's still an awful lot of chaos and confusion swirling around my desk, which I'd hoped to get a handle on before I left tonight--and I'd hoped to be out of here early tonight--but a colleague/friend nabbed me before the SF class and asked if she could talk to me when we were both done with our classes tonight: she'd had a difficult experience and needed to talk to someone sympathetic. So, after class, I ended up providing her with comfort and support--which I was more than happy to do, as she's done the same for me in times past, and I'm honored that she sees me as someone she can turn to when she's in some distress. But as a consequence, it's 8 p.m. and I can either be here even later but leave things somewhat more organized, or I can leave sooner but come in to more chaos on Monday.
I think I'll opt for the latter. Next week will be an odd week: Tuesday follows a Wednesday schedule; then we have Wednesday off for Veteran's day. I strongly suspect I'll take a huge stack of homework for the lit electives home with me to mark on Wednesday, even though every fiber of my being will be saying, "No!!!! Stay in sloppy clothes, eat bon-bons and read mindless fluff all day!!" But it's just a perfect chance to get all the stuff cleared out of my office, and that would feel so very very very good to do that I think I have to do it--and look forward to a real break for Thanksgiving (and I will decidedly be giving thanks for the break, believe me). I'm going to have a helluva lotta work to do on Monday, not just for the 101 but some committee stuff that I have to take care of before I forget all about it--both for the seminar hours committee and the reading of promotion folders for P&B (which must be done before we have a make-up meeting on Thursday).
Now, however, I will at least pick the stacks of paper up off the floor, and pull the pages I printed out of the printer to add to the stacks of paper I'm picking up off the floor, and I'll consider that as organized as I need to get for now. I'm heading home. I have no idea what tomorrow is, but it sure as hell ain't today, and that's a good thing.
Where did I put my bitchitude? Where's my monster outfit? Who kept the dragon in her cave? What in the sam-hill is going on here? If they continue to hang on, I'm going to be stuck grading all those papers all semester. That just cannot be cosmically right. It really can't.
But both classes did go well today, which is nice. They're really generally pretty great classes, in terms of what happens in the course of the 75 minutes when we meet. The SF students are a step or two better than M&D in terms of carrying the discussion out of their small groups and into the class as a whole, but they're both fine--and fun. I like that they're how I end my weeks.
Shifting back to the attrition issue, however, it is indeed ironic that the one class where I'm losing students is the 101, where I didn't have enough to lose. (Oh, and I just remembered, Mr. Over-Enthusiastic "But I was sick"? On the day when the paper was due, the other students told me they'd seen him, just before class started, downstairs in the food court. Must have been an awfully sudden illness.)
In any event, I did get the papers graded for the SF class, barely squeaked the last one out before my meeting at 11:30--but the meeting didn't fill the entire time before class at 1, so I had a little time to manage some e-mail correspondence and manage a few other things. There's still an awful lot of chaos and confusion swirling around my desk, which I'd hoped to get a handle on before I left tonight--and I'd hoped to be out of here early tonight--but a colleague/friend nabbed me before the SF class and asked if she could talk to me when we were both done with our classes tonight: she'd had a difficult experience and needed to talk to someone sympathetic. So, after class, I ended up providing her with comfort and support--which I was more than happy to do, as she's done the same for me in times past, and I'm honored that she sees me as someone she can turn to when she's in some distress. But as a consequence, it's 8 p.m. and I can either be here even later but leave things somewhat more organized, or I can leave sooner but come in to more chaos on Monday.
I think I'll opt for the latter. Next week will be an odd week: Tuesday follows a Wednesday schedule; then we have Wednesday off for Veteran's day. I strongly suspect I'll take a huge stack of homework for the lit electives home with me to mark on Wednesday, even though every fiber of my being will be saying, "No!!!! Stay in sloppy clothes, eat bon-bons and read mindless fluff all day!!" But it's just a perfect chance to get all the stuff cleared out of my office, and that would feel so very very very good to do that I think I have to do it--and look forward to a real break for Thanksgiving (and I will decidedly be giving thanks for the break, believe me). I'm going to have a helluva lotta work to do on Monday, not just for the 101 but some committee stuff that I have to take care of before I forget all about it--both for the seminar hours committee and the reading of promotion folders for P&B (which must be done before we have a make-up meeting on Thursday).
Now, however, I will at least pick the stacks of paper up off the floor, and pull the pages I printed out of the printer to add to the stacks of paper I'm picking up off the floor, and I'll consider that as organized as I need to get for now. I'm heading home. I have no idea what tomorrow is, but it sure as hell ain't today, and that's a good thing.
Wednesday, November 4, 2015
Loopy
I'm damned near blind, I know I'm getting loopy, I have to be back here in about 12 hours, I have four more papers to grade before my 11:30 meeting, I need to be something approaching competent and intelligible at 11:30 (not to mention prior to that, when I'm grading those last four papers), and at this point, I want someone to wave a magic wand so I'm already home, fed (the cats too), and asleep in bed.
I still have one more chapter of Windup Girl to read before class tomorrow, too.
And I meant to get cat food on the way home today, but the pet store will close before I can get there. Ye gods and little fishes.
The main interaction of the day that I want to record, however, is that I booted Mr. Over-Enthusiastic from 101 today. I felt bad about the way I did it: I was too abrupt and fierce at first, but I was also pissed off, because he tried exactly the same routine he did with the last paper: "I have it!" Me: "It's too late." Him: "But I was sick!!" Me: "You didn't contact me..." Him (slight change of the routine: last time he said he didn't know how to contact me): "I tried to contact you, I really tried!" Me: "I have a phone: no message. I have e-mail: no message. You didn't upload it to Turnitin. Nothing."
I won't continue the play-by-play of the interaction, but he vacillated between being angry and starting to cry--and the part that hurt me was when, after I'd told him he needed to withdraw and had no other options in terms of this class, in all sincerity and with real regret, he said, "But then I won't see you again!" I told him he could take 101 in the Winterim--and he wanted to take it from me. I told him I don't teach in the Winterim. I said he could, if he wanted, wait until spring and take 101 from me again in the spring--but that I don't want him to delay his progress; what I really want, I told him, was for him to take 101 in the Winterim, take 102 from someone else in the spring, and then take whatever literature elective I'm teaching next fall--that I'd love to have him in one of my classes when he's gotten his feet under him and is really up and running as a student.
And that's true. I wouldn't be completely unhappy to have him in one of my 101s in the spring, but honestly, I'd prefer to have him as a student again after he's done a little more growing up.
The other thing that bothered me is that the other students were upset to know that he was leaving the class. I know they were driven somewhat nuts by him, but they also liked him--they're such a small group, they're really bonded--and I think they felt hurt on his behalf. I said that he was having health issues that were keeping him from getting his work done (well, he did tell me he'd been sick both times he'd had to submit the first "real" version of papers)--and after a little awkwardness, the rest of the students settled down and got to work.
I really love that class. I do. There are still two students in there, possibly three, who are teetering on the brink of not being able to make it, but the rest are really good: they're learning, they're working hard, they care. One of them--the one with the frat boy outside and the genuine sweetness inside--is struggling to find a clear focus and has sort of slacked off on the work from time to time. At one point, when they were supposed to have come in to class with articles they'd found doing their own research, he didn't have anything with him, and I said, "So, you didn't have a chance to do the research?" He said, "I probably had chances, but I didn't do it." I admire the honesty, and I told him so. He was the first to come to the desk where I was working to talk to me about my comments on his paper--and I think he's catching on now to what he has to do. I think most of them are.
I could probably natter on for a while here--I'm sort of in Energizer Bunny mode (when I'm running on fumes, it's particularly hard for me to let go and wind down because I'm so afraid I'll crash completely and not be able to get going again--and I have another big day in front of me tomorrow)--but really, I do need to get home. And I really can't see very well, so it's time to stop looking at letters and to look at things further away from my face...
I still have one more chapter of Windup Girl to read before class tomorrow, too.
And I meant to get cat food on the way home today, but the pet store will close before I can get there. Ye gods and little fishes.
The main interaction of the day that I want to record, however, is that I booted Mr. Over-Enthusiastic from 101 today. I felt bad about the way I did it: I was too abrupt and fierce at first, but I was also pissed off, because he tried exactly the same routine he did with the last paper: "I have it!" Me: "It's too late." Him: "But I was sick!!" Me: "You didn't contact me..." Him (slight change of the routine: last time he said he didn't know how to contact me): "I tried to contact you, I really tried!" Me: "I have a phone: no message. I have e-mail: no message. You didn't upload it to Turnitin. Nothing."
I won't continue the play-by-play of the interaction, but he vacillated between being angry and starting to cry--and the part that hurt me was when, after I'd told him he needed to withdraw and had no other options in terms of this class, in all sincerity and with real regret, he said, "But then I won't see you again!" I told him he could take 101 in the Winterim--and he wanted to take it from me. I told him I don't teach in the Winterim. I said he could, if he wanted, wait until spring and take 101 from me again in the spring--but that I don't want him to delay his progress; what I really want, I told him, was for him to take 101 in the Winterim, take 102 from someone else in the spring, and then take whatever literature elective I'm teaching next fall--that I'd love to have him in one of my classes when he's gotten his feet under him and is really up and running as a student.
And that's true. I wouldn't be completely unhappy to have him in one of my 101s in the spring, but honestly, I'd prefer to have him as a student again after he's done a little more growing up.
The other thing that bothered me is that the other students were upset to know that he was leaving the class. I know they were driven somewhat nuts by him, but they also liked him--they're such a small group, they're really bonded--and I think they felt hurt on his behalf. I said that he was having health issues that were keeping him from getting his work done (well, he did tell me he'd been sick both times he'd had to submit the first "real" version of papers)--and after a little awkwardness, the rest of the students settled down and got to work.
I really love that class. I do. There are still two students in there, possibly three, who are teetering on the brink of not being able to make it, but the rest are really good: they're learning, they're working hard, they care. One of them--the one with the frat boy outside and the genuine sweetness inside--is struggling to find a clear focus and has sort of slacked off on the work from time to time. At one point, when they were supposed to have come in to class with articles they'd found doing their own research, he didn't have anything with him, and I said, "So, you didn't have a chance to do the research?" He said, "I probably had chances, but I didn't do it." I admire the honesty, and I told him so. He was the first to come to the desk where I was working to talk to me about my comments on his paper--and I think he's catching on now to what he has to do. I think most of them are.
I could probably natter on for a while here--I'm sort of in Energizer Bunny mode (when I'm running on fumes, it's particularly hard for me to let go and wind down because I'm so afraid I'll crash completely and not be able to get going again--and I have another big day in front of me tomorrow)--but really, I do need to get home. And I really can't see very well, so it's time to stop looking at letters and to look at things further away from my face...
Tuesday, November 3, 2015
And just like that, whack, I hit the wall
I was so sure I was going to get all the 101 papers graded tonight. Nope. That dang-blanged wall came up all of a sudden and I feel more than a bit like a crash-test dummy. Or some kind of dummy.
I'm hoping madly that the fact that a minor miracle occurred and tomorrow's scheduled observation was, in fact, postponed (hallelujah and pass the coffee!) will balance out the fact that I still have three 101 papers to grade before I can dive back into the SF mess.
I was about to blithely say, "Well, worst case scenario, I return the papers to the SF students next Tuesday"--but I keep forgetting that next Tuesday follows a Wednesday schedule, so if I don't get their papers back to them on Thursday, I'll have to move the date when the revisions are due again, and I don't feel like farting around with that assignment schedule any more thank you very much.
I'm also realizing we've definitely gotten to the peak of the semester roller-coaster: it's about time to hold onto our collective hats and scream.
SF went OK today. I didn't put them in groups (always a mistake)--but I wanted to be sure to give them some set-up of the social and environmental issues behind Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl, so I ended up doing more "chalk and talk" than I normally do. Of course, I also forgot to give them the "explicit material" advisory that I'd planned. I thought, "Well, maybe I can wait until next class"--but I looked, and nope: the extremely explicit scene of sexual violence is in chapter 2. So I dutifully called everyone, or e-mailed the few I couldn't call for one reason or another, and told them (or left messages) with the warning. Most of the students I actually spoke to were pretty amused that I felt the need to give them the warning--but really, when they get to the scene, they may be glad I did. They were thrown by some of the stuff in Oryx and Crake, and it's tame by comparison.
As Paul noted, however, for many of them, this may make them more likely to actually read the book--especially when I tell them that there is another, similarly explicit scene later.
Um, um, what else.
Oh, part of why I didn't get more grading done is because I was trying to juggle getting things set up for the grade grievance which I think I've mentioned as being among my P&B duties. In today's meeting, we sorted out what has to happen when--including the fact that, because of the "Tuesday is a Wednesday" thing next week, we have to meet on Thursday (which reminds me that I have to tell all my students that my office hour will be canceled next Thursday). But I was going bonkers yesterday because I wasn't going to have time to review the promotion applications by today--and I sure wasn't the only one. But now I have until next Thursday to do that, and until the following Tuesday to look over the finalized sabbatical applications. There's more work coming down the pipeline--including interviewing potential new adjuncts--but I'm relatively certain (knock wood knock wood) that after this week, I won't be in the pressure cooker any more, just at the usual rolling boil.
As for the pressure cooker, I confess I probably could have kept grading a while longer tonight, but part of why the wall suddenly appeared is that I remembered I have to go to the store on my way home tonight--and since I'm doing the "alarm at six to be on campus by 9" thing for the rest of this week, I'd like to be out of here before 9 p.m. tonight. There is a swirl of chaos around my desk that I'd like to bring to some kind of slightly more organized chaos, and then, faithful readers, I'm outta here.
I'm hoping madly that the fact that a minor miracle occurred and tomorrow's scheduled observation was, in fact, postponed (hallelujah and pass the coffee!) will balance out the fact that I still have three 101 papers to grade before I can dive back into the SF mess.
I was about to blithely say, "Well, worst case scenario, I return the papers to the SF students next Tuesday"--but I keep forgetting that next Tuesday follows a Wednesday schedule, so if I don't get their papers back to them on Thursday, I'll have to move the date when the revisions are due again, and I don't feel like farting around with that assignment schedule any more thank you very much.
I'm also realizing we've definitely gotten to the peak of the semester roller-coaster: it's about time to hold onto our collective hats and scream.
SF went OK today. I didn't put them in groups (always a mistake)--but I wanted to be sure to give them some set-up of the social and environmental issues behind Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl, so I ended up doing more "chalk and talk" than I normally do. Of course, I also forgot to give them the "explicit material" advisory that I'd planned. I thought, "Well, maybe I can wait until next class"--but I looked, and nope: the extremely explicit scene of sexual violence is in chapter 2. So I dutifully called everyone, or e-mailed the few I couldn't call for one reason or another, and told them (or left messages) with the warning. Most of the students I actually spoke to were pretty amused that I felt the need to give them the warning--but really, when they get to the scene, they may be glad I did. They were thrown by some of the stuff in Oryx and Crake, and it's tame by comparison.
As Paul noted, however, for many of them, this may make them more likely to actually read the book--especially when I tell them that there is another, similarly explicit scene later.
Um, um, what else.
Oh, part of why I didn't get more grading done is because I was trying to juggle getting things set up for the grade grievance which I think I've mentioned as being among my P&B duties. In today's meeting, we sorted out what has to happen when--including the fact that, because of the "Tuesday is a Wednesday" thing next week, we have to meet on Thursday (which reminds me that I have to tell all my students that my office hour will be canceled next Thursday). But I was going bonkers yesterday because I wasn't going to have time to review the promotion applications by today--and I sure wasn't the only one. But now I have until next Thursday to do that, and until the following Tuesday to look over the finalized sabbatical applications. There's more work coming down the pipeline--including interviewing potential new adjuncts--but I'm relatively certain (knock wood knock wood) that after this week, I won't be in the pressure cooker any more, just at the usual rolling boil.
As for the pressure cooker, I confess I probably could have kept grading a while longer tonight, but part of why the wall suddenly appeared is that I remembered I have to go to the store on my way home tonight--and since I'm doing the "alarm at six to be on campus by 9" thing for the rest of this week, I'd like to be out of here before 9 p.m. tonight. There is a swirl of chaos around my desk that I'd like to bring to some kind of slightly more organized chaos, and then, faithful readers, I'm outta here.
Monday, November 2, 2015
Can't be done
I walked in to the office today, saw Paul sitting there, and instead of my heart lifting at the sight of my dear friend and office husband, it sank: oh fuck, I thought, I have to read promotion folders--and there's a shitload of them.
Well, it simply cannot be done. I just sent an e-mail to P&B saying that I won't have them read--in fact, honestly, I may not even have all the folders for my three mentees read (though I have done Paul's, which was a pleasure). I made a tactical error in terms of the triage with student assignments: since the M&D students are reviewing the first four chapters of An Unsuitable Job for a Woman for class tomorrow, I thought it might help them to have their previous responses back, so I've been working on those--but at the expense of getting the papers marked for the SF class, and I had blissfully forgotten that I have a meeting having to do with an aspect of seminar hours scheduled on Thursday, right smack in the middle of a period of time I was planning on having free. I've asked the other two people involved if we can reschedule, but if we can't, I really do have to do it: I've already been negligent about following through on the issue (dammit), so I can't blow it off.
But this really, truly, no kidding around, means I have to call in "sick" to Advisement on Wednesday. Not only do I have to get the papers marked for the 101 class--and I have an observation on Wednesday (unless something happens to postpone that, which would be wonderful but which I can't count on)--but I absolutely positively must have the papers back to the SF class. I did grade a few (a very few) on Friday, but nowhere near enough to take the pressure off this week.
So, it's going to be another week of getting up at 6 a.m. and being here until between 8 and 9 p.m., grinding away like a fiend--and taking reading home to stay on top of the SF class (as we're starting The Windup Girl for Thursday's class--and I'm very apprehensive about how the students will do with that).
Speaking of the few papers I graded for the SF class, and my concerns about their ability to handle Bacigalupi (author of Windup Girl), I marked the paper written by one of the students who came to my office because she was struggling in the class--and even though her responses had given me cause for concern, I had no clue how profoundly lost she was until I read her paper. I couldn't even mark it. I could weep for the poor thing: she can't understand the books on even the most basic, fundamental, simplistic level--and they're really not hard reading. I just started grading the paper for another student who was also in here, worried about the class, and although it has some problems, at least she understands the reading well enough to say something about it. The other one? I don't know what to say to her. I honestly don't. I spent a lot of time this weekend trying to figure out how to talk to her about the depths of the problem.
Whoof. It's depressing to contemplate.
On the other hand, the students in the 101 today were doing great. It was "peer review" day, and even though one student arrived late, which made the peer review process a little bumpy, they did a great job--and at the end of class, they were asking questions to make sure they understood the process. Something about the way they were asking questions, their concern to get it right, made me feel great about being a teacher: they're getting it. They are starting to grasp the concepts and gain some confidence, and I'm very proud of them.
Except Mr. Super-Enthusiastic. Who wasn't there--despite his whole big speech a while back about how he was going to turn everything around, how he'd made mistakes but he now understands the process and he's going to do everything absolutely right. The other students had even seen him downstairs in the dining area earlier--and he was conspicuously absent.
But the young woman who showed up late was ecstatic because I told her she could change her paper before I evaluated it: she can add to it, upload the new and improved version tonight, and drop off the new and improved for me tomorrow morning--because I won't be grading any papers tonight anyway: I'm going out for steak and scotch with Paul and William, goddammit, even if I have to get up at 6 tomorrow morning and will no doubt feel like 17 kinds of hell because of tonight's overindulgence.
I have about five more minutes to pull things together here in the office before I load William into my car and drive him gently to the lovely steak house where we will meet Paul, and then, well, we'll see what the morrow brings.
Well, it simply cannot be done. I just sent an e-mail to P&B saying that I won't have them read--in fact, honestly, I may not even have all the folders for my three mentees read (though I have done Paul's, which was a pleasure). I made a tactical error in terms of the triage with student assignments: since the M&D students are reviewing the first four chapters of An Unsuitable Job for a Woman for class tomorrow, I thought it might help them to have their previous responses back, so I've been working on those--but at the expense of getting the papers marked for the SF class, and I had blissfully forgotten that I have a meeting having to do with an aspect of seminar hours scheduled on Thursday, right smack in the middle of a period of time I was planning on having free. I've asked the other two people involved if we can reschedule, but if we can't, I really do have to do it: I've already been negligent about following through on the issue (dammit), so I can't blow it off.
But this really, truly, no kidding around, means I have to call in "sick" to Advisement on Wednesday. Not only do I have to get the papers marked for the 101 class--and I have an observation on Wednesday (unless something happens to postpone that, which would be wonderful but which I can't count on)--but I absolutely positively must have the papers back to the SF class. I did grade a few (a very few) on Friday, but nowhere near enough to take the pressure off this week.
So, it's going to be another week of getting up at 6 a.m. and being here until between 8 and 9 p.m., grinding away like a fiend--and taking reading home to stay on top of the SF class (as we're starting The Windup Girl for Thursday's class--and I'm very apprehensive about how the students will do with that).
Speaking of the few papers I graded for the SF class, and my concerns about their ability to handle Bacigalupi (author of Windup Girl), I marked the paper written by one of the students who came to my office because she was struggling in the class--and even though her responses had given me cause for concern, I had no clue how profoundly lost she was until I read her paper. I couldn't even mark it. I could weep for the poor thing: she can't understand the books on even the most basic, fundamental, simplistic level--and they're really not hard reading. I just started grading the paper for another student who was also in here, worried about the class, and although it has some problems, at least she understands the reading well enough to say something about it. The other one? I don't know what to say to her. I honestly don't. I spent a lot of time this weekend trying to figure out how to talk to her about the depths of the problem.
Whoof. It's depressing to contemplate.
On the other hand, the students in the 101 today were doing great. It was "peer review" day, and even though one student arrived late, which made the peer review process a little bumpy, they did a great job--and at the end of class, they were asking questions to make sure they understood the process. Something about the way they were asking questions, their concern to get it right, made me feel great about being a teacher: they're getting it. They are starting to grasp the concepts and gain some confidence, and I'm very proud of them.
Except Mr. Super-Enthusiastic. Who wasn't there--despite his whole big speech a while back about how he was going to turn everything around, how he'd made mistakes but he now understands the process and he's going to do everything absolutely right. The other students had even seen him downstairs in the dining area earlier--and he was conspicuously absent.
But the young woman who showed up late was ecstatic because I told her she could change her paper before I evaluated it: she can add to it, upload the new and improved version tonight, and drop off the new and improved for me tomorrow morning--because I won't be grading any papers tonight anyway: I'm going out for steak and scotch with Paul and William, goddammit, even if I have to get up at 6 tomorrow morning and will no doubt feel like 17 kinds of hell because of tonight's overindulgence.
I have about five more minutes to pull things together here in the office before I load William into my car and drive him gently to the lovely steak house where we will meet Paul, and then, well, we'll see what the morrow brings.
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