The thing about teaching is that the same stuff that's a pain in the neck is also the stuff that keeps you employed.
In other words, it's often difficult to try to come up with lessons to teach people how to develop/employ Skill X, but if they already knew, what would you be teaching for? You'd be a writing consultant instead.
3.17.2010
3.15.2010
PS
Today I also bought one of those pre-made window "greenhouses" with peat pellets so that I can grow something in my room. What can I say: it was marked down to $2.47, I'm entranced every spring (or near-spring) by the appearance of flower and vegetable seed packets in otherwise-quotidian stores...and I didn't realize that the seeds weren't included. They kind of went out of their way on the label to hide that information, and, as mentioned, I was a little punch-drunk by the aforementioned seed-packet display right in the middle of the Wegmans general-merchandise area. (Can you tell that I think New York winters are too long?) So...y'know. Can anyone think of plants that grow well in only about an inch of soil?
Rays of Light
After asking JoAnn the Secretary if I had to submit midsemester grades this coming Wednesday and hearing that I did, I've been, as you'll know from a few entries down, a little worried about the prospect of trying to get everything graded by Wednesday despite having just having gotten the new essays in on Friday.
However, when I actually read the form, here is what I saw (underlining is theirs, not mine):
For midterm (WARNING GRADES) grades, enter all D, I, F grades in the midterm grade columns next to the appropriate student's name. Students who are making satisfactory progress do not need to be graded...
In other words, I don't have to grade anyone who's hanging higher than a D right now (read: all but about three of my students). Which means I have until Friday morning, not Wednesday morning, to get the new project grading done.
In other other words, I'm down to having to grade five papers a day, rather than ten each day for the next two days. I still promised everyone I'd get the new essays back to them on Friday, but at least now I don't have to know all their grades for them two days earlier than that.
It is almost too good to be true.
Also almost too good to be true: midsemester evaluations. You guys just missed, or at least I think you all missed because it only survived for about two hours before its deletion, my latest entry in angsty panic about how the semester was going, because my students' descriptive-essay cover letters were like "dude, I'm such a bad writer, and you confused me, and I had no idea what you wanted!", and today in class, as we started the new unit on the research paper, there was like this palpable feeling of sullenness and skepticism.
I've really been wondering if I'm any good at this.
But today I actually read the evaluations, and it turns out that everybody is actually pretty much fine with the class. In fact, I think the most frequent complaint I got was not about the way I teach, but about having to do a research paper...which I guess would explain this morning.
More shockingly, about half the class had no suggestions for me about what to change. One guy did say that I should find out what they're interested in so they write more about what they're more interested in, and one suggested I find a way to minimize awkward silences when nobody answers a question (well, that should be simple: I should call on people randomly more often, but I'm a bigger pushover here than at BU and haven't wanted to torture these kids any more than necessary), and one said that she (the handwriting would suggest a she, even though it was anonymous) did feel like the assignments were too easy (I probably know who that is, and when it comes to her, she's probably right...maybe I should give her a way this unit to do something harder). Several may have indirectly called the class boring by answering "haven't had it yet" to my question, "What is the most memorable class day we've had so far, and why?" But that was really most of the other-than-anti-research-paper suggestions. And since it's not my fault we're doing a research paper - it's one of the few things that I'm more or less required to do - I get off pretty easy on that one.
I mean, people liking my class still doesn't mean I teach well. I do think I may have to give everybody a five-point the-teacher-was-a-jerk-this-unit bonus on the newest essays: it turns out that I only took five actual class periods to try to teach the descriptive essay (we got snowed out on a sixth, and the seventh and eighth were just peer review and conferencing), which even at BU might have been pushing it, and in this case probably really was, especially since it's something I haven't taught before, which always makes me take about half the unit to figure out what I really want (as opposed to what, as we start the unit, I think I want). Like, there were a lot of x-factors I never cleared up, and looking at what I got on Friday, I think it shows. But, that said, I think this is still the best set of evaluations I've ever gotten, and either that means that I'm improving, and/or it means that these students have lower standards, but right now it means that I feel less like this is going to be a long semester and more like it's just going to be a long unit. Today, I think that's going to be enough.
However, when I actually read the form, here is what I saw (underlining is theirs, not mine):
For midterm (WARNING GRADES) grades, enter all D, I, F grades in the midterm grade columns next to the appropriate student's name. Students who are making satisfactory progress do not need to be graded...
In other words, I don't have to grade anyone who's hanging higher than a D right now (read: all but about three of my students). Which means I have until Friday morning, not Wednesday morning, to get the new project grading done.
In other other words, I'm down to having to grade five papers a day, rather than ten each day for the next two days. I still promised everyone I'd get the new essays back to them on Friday, but at least now I don't have to know all their grades for them two days earlier than that.
It is almost too good to be true.
Also almost too good to be true: midsemester evaluations. You guys just missed, or at least I think you all missed because it only survived for about two hours before its deletion, my latest entry in angsty panic about how the semester was going, because my students' descriptive-essay cover letters were like "dude, I'm such a bad writer, and you confused me, and I had no idea what you wanted!", and today in class, as we started the new unit on the research paper, there was like this palpable feeling of sullenness and skepticism.
I've really been wondering if I'm any good at this.
But today I actually read the evaluations, and it turns out that everybody is actually pretty much fine with the class. In fact, I think the most frequent complaint I got was not about the way I teach, but about having to do a research paper...which I guess would explain this morning.
More shockingly, about half the class had no suggestions for me about what to change. One guy did say that I should find out what they're interested in so they write more about what they're more interested in, and one suggested I find a way to minimize awkward silences when nobody answers a question (well, that should be simple: I should call on people randomly more often, but I'm a bigger pushover here than at BU and haven't wanted to torture these kids any more than necessary), and one said that she (the handwriting would suggest a she, even though it was anonymous) did feel like the assignments were too easy (I probably know who that is, and when it comes to her, she's probably right...maybe I should give her a way this unit to do something harder). Several may have indirectly called the class boring by answering "haven't had it yet" to my question, "What is the most memorable class day we've had so far, and why?" But that was really most of the other-than-anti-research-paper suggestions. And since it's not my fault we're doing a research paper - it's one of the few things that I'm more or less required to do - I get off pretty easy on that one.
I mean, people liking my class still doesn't mean I teach well. I do think I may have to give everybody a five-point the-teacher-was-a-jerk-this-unit bonus on the newest essays: it turns out that I only took five actual class periods to try to teach the descriptive essay (we got snowed out on a sixth, and the seventh and eighth were just peer review and conferencing), which even at BU might have been pushing it, and in this case probably really was, especially since it's something I haven't taught before, which always makes me take about half the unit to figure out what I really want (as opposed to what, as we start the unit, I think I want). Like, there were a lot of x-factors I never cleared up, and looking at what I got on Friday, I think it shows. But, that said, I think this is still the best set of evaluations I've ever gotten, and either that means that I'm improving, and/or it means that these students have lower standards, but right now it means that I feel less like this is going to be a long semester and more like it's just going to be a long unit. Today, I think that's going to be enough.
3.13.2010
Last Night
I had this dream last night - I think I felt college-age, and the earlier part of the dream involved Jess and Tim (not, as Albert will be wondering, Tim-and-Jessie) and whether she was going to ask him for a Bible as a combination Christmas/birthday present, but the later part involved, of all people, Mrs. Oldfield, proctoring a ridiculously-difficult science test that I hadn't studied for but had to take (so did other high school friends of mine, including Bethie)...except that it got cancelled because she'd accidentally given us the answer key along with the questions. So I caught a major break (figured I'd study for next time), and we all had to leave the huge and crowded (and fairly dark - I think a little bit of window light was all we were working with) room we were taking the test in, but Atwater and Donnelly were also there holding an apparently-impromptu concert as we were leaving (I forget what song), so the mass exodus wasn't as bad as I'd expected.
I bring all of this up both because it's random and because the dream made me think of this, which I posted before I'd ever been to grad school, but which makes even more sense now that I'm out of it. In terms of background detail, I mean. Not in terms of theme: that's as clear as ever.
While we're on teaching, my students are discouraged, and mostly so am I. We had a bad unit, and some of them are frustrated with me (and well they might be, considering), and the rest are, worse, frustrated with themselves. I really won't be good at this until I have more time to put into it - maybe not even until I quit my church job. Jesus is right: you really can't serve two masters. It's not even that I'm scheduled for a lot of hours - I'm not; it's really a question of divided allegiance. Sometimes the stuff I'm doing for church frankly makes it hard to care about school - or provides a convenient way to avoid the school work that intimidates me (read: pretty much all of it). Sometimes I wonder if I'm really going to teach all my life, despite my having gone out of my way to get a degree for it. It's not that I don't like it, but compared with so many of the other things I do, I wonder if my heart's really in it.
But this coming unit - despite its being fuller of "stuff," because it's the research-paper unit - should be simpler to teach, and the only thing I can do right now is focus on doing the easy things that should make everyone somewhat calmer. I've finally planned out my whole unit on a macro level, at least in a simple sort of way (Week 1: choosing a topic, finding and evaluating sources, deciding what details are important to include; Week 2: summary/paraphrase/quotation, in-text citation, Works Cited pages; Week 3: important grammatical concerns), and from here the next best thing I can do is to make them a specific grading rubric, since surely I should have done so for either of the first two projects, but, thanks to time constraints and other less innocent things, I didn't. All the things that one learns in grad school to do turn out really to be at the mercy of time and mood and basic human fallibility.
Anyway, today is sure to be an action-packed day, so I should go have it instead of staying here.
I bring all of this up both because it's random and because the dream made me think of this, which I posted before I'd ever been to grad school, but which makes even more sense now that I'm out of it. In terms of background detail, I mean. Not in terms of theme: that's as clear as ever.
While we're on teaching, my students are discouraged, and mostly so am I. We had a bad unit, and some of them are frustrated with me (and well they might be, considering), and the rest are, worse, frustrated with themselves. I really won't be good at this until I have more time to put into it - maybe not even until I quit my church job. Jesus is right: you really can't serve two masters. It's not even that I'm scheduled for a lot of hours - I'm not; it's really a question of divided allegiance. Sometimes the stuff I'm doing for church frankly makes it hard to care about school - or provides a convenient way to avoid the school work that intimidates me (read: pretty much all of it). Sometimes I wonder if I'm really going to teach all my life, despite my having gone out of my way to get a degree for it. It's not that I don't like it, but compared with so many of the other things I do, I wonder if my heart's really in it.
But this coming unit - despite its being fuller of "stuff," because it's the research-paper unit - should be simpler to teach, and the only thing I can do right now is focus on doing the easy things that should make everyone somewhat calmer. I've finally planned out my whole unit on a macro level, at least in a simple sort of way (Week 1: choosing a topic, finding and evaluating sources, deciding what details are important to include; Week 2: summary/paraphrase/quotation, in-text citation, Works Cited pages; Week 3: important grammatical concerns), and from here the next best thing I can do is to make them a specific grading rubric, since surely I should have done so for either of the first two projects, but, thanks to time constraints and other less innocent things, I didn't. All the things that one learns in grad school to do turn out really to be at the mercy of time and mood and basic human fallibility.
Anyway, today is sure to be an action-packed day, so I should go have it instead of staying here.
3.12.2010
As Many Quick Takes As I Can Fit In Before Sundown
-I'm not sure which of the words in the above title shouldn't have been capitalized, if any. The "as" seemed like a likely candidate, but it looked so bad with everything else capped that I gave in.
-My friend Laura's been volunteering with Mercy Ships. I'm adding her blog to the roll - it's really something.
-I love all forms of spring. Including this one, where the whole place kind of looks kind of like the outside of the RIT hockey rink in the late fall: there're little dirt-flecked snow lumps all around, resting on frozen yellow-green-brown grass.
-But Chaucer was so right: it makes me want to go pretty much anywhere besides Binghamton or Syracuse, which're about the only places I've gone since Christmas break. Carrie and I were supposed to poke around a neighboring town tomorrow and hopefully meet up with a church friend we haven't seen in a while, but now that the forecast includes rain all tomorrow, who knows what'll happen.
-I made another Monastery Soups soup: St. Christopher's Soup, not because I felt sick (apparently it's supposed to be a pretty good soup for that kind of thing), but because I was in the mood for cabbage. I have to say, though, if I'm going to do it again, I need to make my own vegetable broth: you can buy passable chicken or beef stock, but I really feel like tomatoes have no business in a vegetable stock, and it turns out that you cannot buy premade vegetable stock without them. I know tomato is one of those vegetables that everyone wants to throw into everything, but I'm going on record right now: not in vegetable stock.
-I am also getting really impatient for a maple festival. Any maple festival.
-Having finally gotten through grading my students' first essays (handed them back Monday), I now have to turn around and do it again: I just got in the descriptive essays today, but I can't take another not-gonna-tell-you-how-long-I-took-the-first-time because midsemester grades are due THIS COMING WEDNESDAY, and since I think everyone would prefer that something besides one essay and a smattering of homeworks be part of them, I'm going to have to turn these right back around. Don't pity me: it will be good for me. I'm pretty sure half the life angst you guys have to deal with out of me comes by way of how badly I always need to do work for my class, and how seldom I ever actually do it. The factor's always heightened when there're papers to grade, so really, this will save you headaches while reading my blog.
-Book recommendation as the sun finishes setting: P.G. Wodehouse's The World of Jeeves. That is all.
-My friend Laura's been volunteering with Mercy Ships. I'm adding her blog to the roll - it's really something.
-I love all forms of spring. Including this one, where the whole place kind of looks kind of like the outside of the RIT hockey rink in the late fall: there're little dirt-flecked snow lumps all around, resting on frozen yellow-green-brown grass.
-But Chaucer was so right: it makes me want to go pretty much anywhere besides Binghamton or Syracuse, which're about the only places I've gone since Christmas break. Carrie and I were supposed to poke around a neighboring town tomorrow and hopefully meet up with a church friend we haven't seen in a while, but now that the forecast includes rain all tomorrow, who knows what'll happen.
-I made another Monastery Soups soup: St. Christopher's Soup, not because I felt sick (apparently it's supposed to be a pretty good soup for that kind of thing), but because I was in the mood for cabbage. I have to say, though, if I'm going to do it again, I need to make my own vegetable broth: you can buy passable chicken or beef stock, but I really feel like tomatoes have no business in a vegetable stock, and it turns out that you cannot buy premade vegetable stock without them. I know tomato is one of those vegetables that everyone wants to throw into everything, but I'm going on record right now: not in vegetable stock.
-I am also getting really impatient for a maple festival. Any maple festival.
-Having finally gotten through grading my students' first essays (handed them back Monday), I now have to turn around and do it again: I just got in the descriptive essays today, but I can't take another not-gonna-tell-you-how-long-I-took-the-first-time because midsemester grades are due THIS COMING WEDNESDAY, and since I think everyone would prefer that something besides one essay and a smattering of homeworks be part of them, I'm going to have to turn these right back around. Don't pity me: it will be good for me. I'm pretty sure half the life angst you guys have to deal with out of me comes by way of how badly I always need to do work for my class, and how seldom I ever actually do it. The factor's always heightened when there're papers to grade, so really, this will save you headaches while reading my blog.
-Book recommendation as the sun finishes setting: P.G. Wodehouse's The World of Jeeves. That is all.
3.10.2010
Very Quickly on a Wednesday Morning
Temperatures hit the fifties today for the first time in I don't even know how long.
I had completely forgotten from this time last year how hard it suddenly becomes to care about dressing up for teaching. Especially when all I'm doing today is conferences.
I had completely forgotten from this time last year how hard it suddenly becomes to care about dressing up for teaching. Especially when all I'm doing today is conferences.
3.06.2010
Seriously, you have no idea how much grading I should be doing right now.
But instead I am trying to wrangle the church bulletins [edit: that isn't church's fault or anything...it's mine] and am also half-baffled over what looks, to my untrained eye, like my insurance company being lazy.
See, because of the BU layoff, my health insurance under them expires March 17th. Happily for me, however, I live and work in New York State, so I applied for Healthy NY, which's basically a reduced-rate insurance program for people like myself who don't make a whole lot per month (had I made way less, I could have qualified for free insurance, I think through the county or something, but I don't think I'm going to quit one of my jobs just to get under the line, assuming that would even work). You don't have to already have insurance to get it (in fact, as you'll see, it's probably easier to get it if you don't). It's sort of run by the state, but is really executed through individual insurance providers - which means that my paperwork didn't go to the state, it went to my current insurance carrier.
So I get a letter in the mail today, rejecting me from Healthy NY for the following reason: "You are not eligible for a change in insurance because you reside outside of our 28-county area. If you would like to cancel your insurance under [their name], please write to..."
In other words, if I understand correctly, despite my informing them on the paperwork of the date that my insurance is scheduled to terminate, they rejected me because I'm not allowed to make a "change" to the plan I have with them right now.
You know, the plan that's going to expire in a week and a half.
Which means, if I understand correctly, that the only thing that's keeping me from the program is that I submitted the paperwork about two days too soon. Because submitting by February 20th (I faxed it over on the 19th) was supposed to start my coverage on March 1st; had they received it after the 20th, the planned start date would have been April 1st instead. So basically, my guess, though I'm going to have to call the insurance people on Monday and find out, is that if I take my sweet self back to Kinko's on March 18th (or, for that matter, possibly this Monday) and refax the very same paperwork I faxed over on February 19th (or just send it this time, since I have it all together and won't be working with quite the same level of time constraint I was last month), I'll qualify to start on April 1st. Because next time, I won't have health insurance, so they can't object on the grounds that I'm not allowed to change the type of insurance I'm getting from them, because I won't be getting any from them.
Like, if my not residing in their 28-county area, whatever that means, genuinely ties their hands against covering me for March, okay, whatever. I'm probably not going to have a medical emergency between the 18th and 31st, and if I do, I'm blessed with parents who care about me and have good jobs, and they'll write the check. But can't the insurance people just make a note on my paperwork and then tell me, "Hey, we can't cover you under this plan until your insurance actually expires, but how's about we start you on April 1st, as though you'd submitted the paperwork the following week?"
So, in sum, I really appreciate the existence of Healthy NY, and the people who work only for Healthy NY and not for my insurance company were fine and very helpful and informative whenever I called. But as for my insurance company: really, guys?
See, because of the BU layoff, my health insurance under them expires March 17th. Happily for me, however, I live and work in New York State, so I applied for Healthy NY, which's basically a reduced-rate insurance program for people like myself who don't make a whole lot per month (had I made way less, I could have qualified for free insurance, I think through the county or something, but I don't think I'm going to quit one of my jobs just to get under the line, assuming that would even work). You don't have to already have insurance to get it (in fact, as you'll see, it's probably easier to get it if you don't). It's sort of run by the state, but is really executed through individual insurance providers - which means that my paperwork didn't go to the state, it went to my current insurance carrier.
So I get a letter in the mail today, rejecting me from Healthy NY for the following reason: "You are not eligible for a change in insurance because you reside outside of our 28-county area. If you would like to cancel your insurance under [their name], please write to..."
In other words, if I understand correctly, despite my informing them on the paperwork of the date that my insurance is scheduled to terminate, they rejected me because I'm not allowed to make a "change" to the plan I have with them right now.
You know, the plan that's going to expire in a week and a half.
Which means, if I understand correctly, that the only thing that's keeping me from the program is that I submitted the paperwork about two days too soon. Because submitting by February 20th (I faxed it over on the 19th) was supposed to start my coverage on March 1st; had they received it after the 20th, the planned start date would have been April 1st instead. So basically, my guess, though I'm going to have to call the insurance people on Monday and find out, is that if I take my sweet self back to Kinko's on March 18th (or, for that matter, possibly this Monday) and refax the very same paperwork I faxed over on February 19th (or just send it this time, since I have it all together and won't be working with quite the same level of time constraint I was last month), I'll qualify to start on April 1st. Because next time, I won't have health insurance, so they can't object on the grounds that I'm not allowed to change the type of insurance I'm getting from them, because I won't be getting any from them.
Like, if my not residing in their 28-county area, whatever that means, genuinely ties their hands against covering me for March, okay, whatever. I'm probably not going to have a medical emergency between the 18th and 31st, and if I do, I'm blessed with parents who care about me and have good jobs, and they'll write the check. But can't the insurance people just make a note on my paperwork and then tell me, "Hey, we can't cover you under this plan until your insurance actually expires, but how's about we start you on April 1st, as though you'd submitted the paperwork the following week?"
So, in sum, I really appreciate the existence of Healthy NY, and the people who work only for Healthy NY and not for my insurance company were fine and very helpful and informative whenever I called. But as for my insurance company: really, guys?
3.05.2010
I Can't Believe It's Only Been a Week Since the Snow Day
Especially because today is sunny in about the mid-thirties.
I have way too much work for both jobs to be blogging right now, or to have been doing anything I've been doing for most of the day. I'll only say these, in lieu of seven quick takes:
-You can give up nighttime internet for Lent, and it will help, but the gospel is true: what I ultimately need is not a behavioral change, but an inner change. Taking myself off Google Reader past sundown will help me get to bed a little earlier (and accidentally leaving my iPod in Syracuse will help, too), though not a lot. Forcing me to answer e-mails by day helps me to use my time a little more effectively and to put things in slightly better proportion. But even though I mostly gave up night internet to get more sleep (and how's that been working out for me, given that I shove all my BCC work off on the evenings?), I was also hoping that it would help me get my work done at something other than the last minute. But it has not: mere cyberdisconnection does not squelch my innate desire to avoid work I don't like or that scares me with its size or complexity. And that desire is good at getting its way. Really good at buying itself more time to operate. And really good at getting me to lie to myself about what's important.
-That said, I think my lessons have taken less time to plan without Facebook et al. to distract me.
-Also, I learned today (which was one of those mornings where a lot went wrong and so I ended up, among other things, teaching more or less from memory the lesson on comma rules that I had spent hours turning into a worksheet last night but then couldn't print off this morning) that comma rules are apparently hard to explain. I did my best with four of them, giving lots of explanation and multiple examples, and I thought I was making sense, but when I put sample sentences up on the board at the end and asked them what rule was being implemented each time, they got it wrong all three-or-four times. At least they knew where some of the commas needed to go, though I've no idea whether they already knew or would know in an actual essay setting. Also, when you get down to it, I don't know if my end examples were really all that good.
-I get headaches when I wear ponytails too long. So I'm taking mine down and then, despite all wisdom and despite everything I have written above, I am probably going to take a nap, because I am pretty tired. The end.
I have way too much work for both jobs to be blogging right now, or to have been doing anything I've been doing for most of the day. I'll only say these, in lieu of seven quick takes:
-You can give up nighttime internet for Lent, and it will help, but the gospel is true: what I ultimately need is not a behavioral change, but an inner change. Taking myself off Google Reader past sundown will help me get to bed a little earlier (and accidentally leaving my iPod in Syracuse will help, too), though not a lot. Forcing me to answer e-mails by day helps me to use my time a little more effectively and to put things in slightly better proportion. But even though I mostly gave up night internet to get more sleep (and how's that been working out for me, given that I shove all my BCC work off on the evenings?), I was also hoping that it would help me get my work done at something other than the last minute. But it has not: mere cyberdisconnection does not squelch my innate desire to avoid work I don't like or that scares me with its size or complexity. And that desire is good at getting its way. Really good at buying itself more time to operate. And really good at getting me to lie to myself about what's important.
-That said, I think my lessons have taken less time to plan without Facebook et al. to distract me.
-Also, I learned today (which was one of those mornings where a lot went wrong and so I ended up, among other things, teaching more or less from memory the lesson on comma rules that I had spent hours turning into a worksheet last night but then couldn't print off this morning) that comma rules are apparently hard to explain. I did my best with four of them, giving lots of explanation and multiple examples, and I thought I was making sense, but when I put sample sentences up on the board at the end and asked them what rule was being implemented each time, they got it wrong all three-or-four times. At least they knew where some of the commas needed to go, though I've no idea whether they already knew or would know in an actual essay setting. Also, when you get down to it, I don't know if my end examples were really all that good.
-I get headaches when I wear ponytails too long. So I'm taking mine down and then, despite all wisdom and despite everything I have written above, I am probably going to take a nap, because I am pretty tired. The end.
3.03.2010
Dude, Chinese Government, What's Teen Girl Squad Ever Done to You?
It turns out that Homestar Runner's banned in China.
So are a lot of things, obviously, but that one kinda made me giggle.
(Full spreadsheet, for the curious, here; I got it from Information is Beautiful, which I heard about last semester at BU and have been checking periodically ever since.)
So are a lot of things, obviously, but that one kinda made me giggle.
(Full spreadsheet, for the curious, here; I got it from Information is Beautiful, which I heard about last semester at BU and have been checking periodically ever since.)