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March 04, 2005
tj 205: week 7
today was the final (extended) deadline for the pairs/groups paper we've been working on, and i only had 4 out of 8 groups tell me that for some reason or another someone who wasn't there was responsible for materials that should have been in the folders of work that i collected.
i suppose this is why some people micro-manage. i can't bring myself to do it. a) i really do believe they need to learn on their own to manage their time, to plan for their contingencies, to be accountable to me & one another, & b) i really don't care. i care about my students. i care about their writing. there's plenty to care about in those things--there's far too much, in fact, if i'm really doing it honestly & completely--for me to siphon off some of that energy for caring about whether the folder's in my hand on tuesday or not until wednesday.
so the folders--group folders, with group work, but with today's individually-written reflection-statements--are in, with a few pieces still trickling down the stream, and we've started brainstorming--today we made little charts transforming broad and more narrow topics into claims to look at their research-potential, which activity i need to come back to once they're solid with what they want to do--research topics for paper 3.
they're less than thrilled that the two run right together, but we don't have time after break to start then and finish, so we need to get this going now; i explained that and i think they're with me on the logic. beyond that, it doesn't matter: i do still get to set the schedule, even if i also have to let them flex it a little to make gaps to fit their own lives into.
the people who weren't there today i'm genuinely disappointed in, both because of the missing pieces in others' folders & b/c coming in once in a while for a deadline really shouldn't be that hard. but i guess if i don't act like the enforcer, occasional disappointment is a price i'm going to pay. it's like i know all of these things--i did take many years worth of education classes, after all--but until i try each one of them--and i think i'm different about late work every time--to see how i respond, how students+i respond, how much stress it generates in return for the other kinds it alleviates, it doesn't matter what i've been told; i have to do it.
i'm excited about unit 3. i hope they are too. i'm worried about my no-shows, b/c at least one of them seems to be losing his grip at the moment. i also--and i've never seen this happen in other places the way it happens in syracuse--still have on my roster a student who hasn't been to class in a good two months now, who can't help but fail & yet can't, apparently, be bothered (or else she's in denial) to complete the paperwork to drop.
last random detail to remember: i've misplaced or forgotten to read casey's re-write 3 different times; he should not have to keep reminding me to fetch it off of blackboard; i look like a disorganized mess when people have to keep asking over & over for things they should have had long ago; i need some more reliable way of keeping track of the notes to myself i make in class when we have these little reminding-chats so that they don't end up buried in a folder i don't remember to open, where they do nobody any good at all. the good news is that i have found, downloaded, & printed it now, & should be able to give it back to him on monday! maybe he'll forget the old requests in light of me being so on top of the most recent one?
listening to:
Posted by ttobryan at March 4, 2005 11:44 AM