I've just come out of a tiring, tiring* teaching session.
Teaching, as I've been telling Allison and another friend, is the one thing I've enjoyed and loved about Large Cornfield School. The students are usually on top of their game, they don't hesitate to put in work for their grades and come to class at least 40% prepared**. They make me want to keep teaching and to keep teaching writing courses.
Today however, I walked out of class feeling like it was an unmitigated disaster.
My students kept yawning and one even fell asleep only waking up intermittently to check his phone. (One of the first things I tell my students is that my only real strict rule is "No Using Cellphones/Ipods/Other Fancy Devices In Class". "It is a pet peeve", I tell my them on the first day, "It derails my thought and bothers me to see cellphones or fancy electronic gadgets being fiddled with in my classroom.") Upon being called out, of course, he mouthed "I am not using my phone" to his buddy. This behavior bothers me. Yeah, I know it is just one student and just one class. And it might never happen again.
But, it bothers me to call a student out. And what's buggering me right now is that I might now have to deal with resistance and general button-pushing from said student.
And this is a scenario that I'd much rather avoid.
Bleh. Now onto 100 pages of reading in an hour.
*And not the good kind of tiring where you give thanks for a few minutes of meager fulfillment in hours ofslave labor being a Freshman Composition TA.
**To an English Composition class, 40% prepared is awesomesauce in my book.
Teaching, as I've been telling Allison and another friend, is the one thing I've enjoyed and loved about Large Cornfield School. The students are usually on top of their game, they don't hesitate to put in work for their grades and come to class at least 40% prepared**. They make me want to keep teaching and to keep teaching writing courses.
Today however, I walked out of class feeling like it was an unmitigated disaster.
My students kept yawning and one even fell asleep only waking up intermittently to check his phone. (One of the first things I tell my students is that my only real strict rule is "No Using Cellphones/Ipods/Other Fancy Devices In Class". "It is a pet peeve", I tell my them on the first day, "It derails my thought and bothers me to see cellphones or fancy electronic gadgets being fiddled with in my classroom.") Upon being called out, of course, he mouthed "I am not using my phone" to his buddy. This behavior bothers me. Yeah, I know it is just one student and just one class. And it might never happen again.
But, it bothers me to call a student out. And what's buggering me right now is that I might now have to deal with resistance and general button-pushing from said student.
And this is a scenario that I'd much rather avoid.
Bleh. Now onto 100 pages of reading in an hour.
*And not the good kind of tiring where you give thanks for a few minutes of meager fulfillment in hours of
**To an English Composition class, 40% prepared is awesomesauce in my book.
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