12 Day Hiatus

The grades are posted. My second go-round with teaching is in the bag. The second semester was definitely harder than the first, much to my surprise. Instead of teaching four different classes, I was teaching two sections of two classes, which is easier in theory because there's prep for two classes instead of four. Unfortunately, I discovered I still don't have a gauge for time in teaching. One class will fly by while I get to only two of the ten things I put on my lesson plan. Another class will fly through all ten lesson plan items in less than a half an hour, and I need to improv the rest of the class. Some lesson plans take 10 minutes, others take over an hour. Some papers take 15 minutes to grade, some take less than three minutes. If I teach again, I'll see if I can do a better job of planning and estimating. I also need to be crabbier. That way, there might be less late work and incomplete homework. While I appreciate the time taken to craft elaborate excuses, I can't deal with the ensuing logistics. Papers end up being in three different places in 10 different stages of grading. The best excuse to date; "I didn't do my homework because I got a concussion from hitting my head on a moving box while I was changing apartments." No more credit for alibi creativity. Frank McCourt was right to give his students a late slip writing assignment. Creativity and storytelling are at their best when making excuses.