Step on Up

I taught the first hour of my first year comp class just a bit ago.

Somehow, it sort of shocks me that students don't know how to read a calendar.  It shouldn't shock me, of course, and I do explain it, but it's a whole new thing for them, and many are anxious, and they really want to do well, and so they want to make extra sure they understood.

It's all new to first year students, every few years, students pass on to something more complicated and difficult, and they need to make an adjustment.  Most of them make the adjustment pretty well, but the first days are anxious, and then the difficult part of beginning college sets in with time management.

There's time management for me, too.  There's a bunch of stuff that HAS TO BE DONE right off the bat for this course, the common ground stuff that we all agree to do to get started, and that took up a lot of time.  And the group leaders gave us this syllabus language and it's long.  But it seems silly to give students a syllabus and not go through it and talk about it, so I did, but it took forever.

And of course, there's one student who has a legitimate obligation that will keep hir from class for the rest of the week, and now I have to deal with that (either not give a quiz when I plan to or give hir a chance to make it up, which is a pain in the rear).

In a little bit, I get to go teach Shakespeare!  Yay!

We're starting with a short performance project.  Usually, it's a dream; it does all sorts of good things to get the students thinking about plays and such.  But it's the sort of thing where if there's a student missing the first day, or one that tries to add a day late, it's a pain in the rear.

And then later, witchcraft!  I'm going to conjure!  Yeah!