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April 18, 2005
tj 308: week 13
sitting in being mostly observational is weird. too easy, because i'm not doing the work of being the teacher--and certainly not doing the work of prepping for the course and grading student writing, and although i did have my turn of that the first half of the semester and shouldn't feel like a slacker for shifting turns, i do anyway. it's what teachers do. how can i be the teacher--a teacher, anything like a teacher--without doing the work? and too hard, because sometimes corey looks at me, with this half-smile of conspiracy, like we're students in the same class both learning from molly and watching to see what she does that we like and don't, and that's just an odd position to occupy. there's nothing wrong--or at least nothing i'd know what to change--but it's weird.
the writing she has them doing looks great, from what i've seen of it, but it isn't really passing through my hands unless i pick things up they're workshopping on the days i happen to be in class. molly's and my schedules aren't compatible at all, so every time anything needs to go through both of us--we gave them progress reports last week, and so they needed my grades as well as hers--it's an intricate logistical dance of e-mailing drafts and leaving things in each others' mailboxes that i wouldn't want to do with student papers--the likelihood that we'd lose or mistreat their work is too great, and i want it treated with more respect than that, even if that means that i'm not seeing it. they're almost done, though. 3 tuesdays left, 3 meetings i'll actually be there for, if they're in class the last day instead of just submitting work, and then lord knows what our evaluations are going to look like, or even what in the world they'll choose to evaluate--they have so many choices.
Posted by ttobryan at April 18, 2005 10:47 AM