Friday, February 5, 2010

Not Much to Report

This semester is going like most others. Plan, grade, plan, grade. I have a lot of classes, but they're enjoyable--especially Intro to Ethics. It's new to me and it's quite a change from the usual.

But today in my ten o'clock Comp II class I completely lost my mind. Today was the day to discuss "The Things They Carried," which is always a great day. It's a great story, and the students are engaged with the material enough to really bear down and learn about how to explore themes in fiction. It's one of my favorite days of the semester.

But two thirds of my ten o'clock students didn't do the reading. I chewed them out. Then I haltingly taught them about theme for a few minutes. Then I chewed them out again. Then I told them about all of the other things that I'd be able to teach them if they'd read the assignment. Then I chewed them out again. And then I sent them away, twenty minutes early, because I was disgusted with them.

They messed up my favorite day.

1 comment:

Anna said...

Aw. The life of a professor, man. *hugs*

My husband had a similar fun time last Friday when he tried to discuss the State of the Union address in his argumentation class. Half of his students hadn't watched it, but they all had specific opinions about it. (Very specific opinions which mysteriously aligned with a particular political party's trademark line of thought. And various related pundits, too! Whee!) He picked me up from work and proceeded to pound the steering wheel for about ten minutes.

Hang in there!