First partial week of classes . . . [Confessions of a Liberal Puritan]

This is my first semester of teaching THREE (count 'em, three) courses, and so far, I have to say it's exhausting, but kind of fun.

The exhaustion part comes from having three separate syllabi and sets of handouts to prepare, and three different attendance lists, and having to keep straight in my own head whether I've told this information to this particular group of students yet, or whether I'm thinking of yesterday's class, instead.

The kind of fun part comes from feeling as though my teaching skills are valued by the university, but even more than that, from the experience of starting to connect with the students and get them talking.

So far, I've had three students drop out of one of my courses, but the other two remain at the maximum allowable enrollment of 24 students each. I'd be just as grateful not to have more than 69 separate papers and sets of essay exams to grade, frankly. Oh, well -- it's nice to be wanted, I guess.

Hope the end of August is treating each of you well, or at least not too badly.

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Ah yes, the "have I told you this already?' syndrome. I know it well! I usually teach at least two sections of the same course, often back to back, and now and then a certain tape-recorder feeling comes over me, but I try to fight it.

If your classes are capped at 24, consider yourself fortunate. All I can say is that ours are not and a semester in which I had but 69 or 70 final papers to grade would look pretty swell to me.

Hope your semester is a good one. I'm actually looking forward to mine, despite the heavy teaching load.

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Yes, I know I'm very fortunate to teach classes at a private university where the Religion department's classrooms really only hold 24 students comfortably (for the most part), so they cap all their courses at 24 or smaller -- even the required "global studies" courses that everybody has to take sooner or later.

But you may need to remind me later on in the semester that 70 papers and 70 essay exams to grade in that last week IS something to be thankful for. (I'm also thinking that maybe I should've skipped the sectional exams during the semester this year, but it's one of the few ways I can get a real feel for whether or not they're 'getting it', before the semester's so far gone that it's too late to fix.)

Hope your semester is a good one, too.

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Aiyeee! Three classes! I have two, and I'm just grateful that they're back to back and not at 8:30 in the freaking morning. And I'm glad I didn't get cut down to one, which was looking possible for a while, because I am actually losing money by commuting if I only get one. Ah well, it's just the joy of a new semester in the midwest.

Good luck with all the new peeps, and may it be a productive semester all the way around.

Back to back would be REALLY nice, in some ways, but I should be grateful that my earliest class isn't until 10 AM (of course, then I've got two hours to kill without an actual office in which to work while I'm waiting for my next class on M-W-F, but . . . ). I hadn't even thought of the fact that it could be so much worse, so much earlier in the day.

And I feel your pain about the "do I even break even for the cost of the commute?" thing. The third class was added at the last minute, and the other two courses I wasn't asked to teach until early June, so for most of the Spring I was thinking I wouldn't have ANY teaching work this Fall at all.

Good luck to you, also, and ditto on the wish for productivity for all of us.

You'll get into the swing of it pretty quickly I bet. I look forward to hearing tales from the classroom. After all, students say the darnedest things. :) Good luck and do what you need to do to keep your sanity!

So far, I've had one young woman in my "Introduction to the New Testament" course tell me, "You're my hero!" and want to give me a "cool nickname" -- only because I knew all the words to several 'Schoolhouse Rock' songs (we were discussing how people preserve and pass on the information and the stories that they deem most essential to their identity and purpose AS a people)!

But I'll keep you apprised if anything more original turns up!

What a fantastic example of memorized history! You'll just have to endure being cool. :)

Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

First partial week of classes . . .

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lucky 24

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College kids say the darnedest things . . .

Re: College kids say the darnedest things . . .

October