odds and ends from monstrous monday
Well, another monstrous Monday is in the books and it wasn't nearly as bad as I expected it to be...actually, my classes on Monday are pretty good. It's just the prospect of being in front of people for five hours straight that is so daunting. My mom told me I needed to find something positive about Mondays. Well, here it is: the feeling of relief I have at 13h when the last student walks out of my door and the marathon of teaching is over. Actually, a marathon would take me less time, probably...
In any case, something needs to be done about the 8am class...this week, I had exactly 60 students show up.
I have to say that I've noticed some interesting things about my students in the past week or so. The first is something I really don't understand. Instead of going into the classroom and sitting down, my students prefer to stand outside the classroom, sometimes not even checking to see if anyone is actually in the class when the doors are closed. I can understand this at a later hour of the day because there usually is another class before. However, it realy confounds me that my 8am class stands outside the door instead of going in. It's 8am, folks! There's no one in there before us! Go in and get comfortable!
My 8am class is so big that I've been trying to economize on photocopies. For example, I make a list of questions, copy and paste it 6 times and then cut the sheet into little strips. I've seen a number of students actually take out glue sticks and glue this tiny slip of paper into their notes. I don't know about you, but the last time I used a glue stick was the third grade!
In other news, today Metz made us pay for all of the nice weather we'd been having...today it rained all day long. It was raining SO hard that I took the bus home from the university and those of you who know me well know that I HATE the bus. I guess no place on earth is perfect...I'll have to just love Metz for Metz and take the good with the bad.
Finally, I'll leave you with some humor. I asked my students to describe pictures today that dealt with the theme "freedom of the press." One picture depicted a pen in a box (could symbolize writing as a gift or the fact that writing is dead) and I was writing my students responses on the board. I made a big mistake by putting some of my letters too close together. Here was my sentence: "pen is a gift". I tried to fix the mistake, but the damage was already done....how juvenile, right?
In any case, something needs to be done about the 8am class...this week, I had exactly 60 students show up.
I have to say that I've noticed some interesting things about my students in the past week or so. The first is something I really don't understand. Instead of going into the classroom and sitting down, my students prefer to stand outside the classroom, sometimes not even checking to see if anyone is actually in the class when the doors are closed. I can understand this at a later hour of the day because there usually is another class before. However, it realy confounds me that my 8am class stands outside the door instead of going in. It's 8am, folks! There's no one in there before us! Go in and get comfortable!
My 8am class is so big that I've been trying to economize on photocopies. For example, I make a list of questions, copy and paste it 6 times and then cut the sheet into little strips. I've seen a number of students actually take out glue sticks and glue this tiny slip of paper into their notes. I don't know about you, but the last time I used a glue stick was the third grade!
In other news, today Metz made us pay for all of the nice weather we'd been having...today it rained all day long. It was raining SO hard that I took the bus home from the university and those of you who know me well know that I HATE the bus. I guess no place on earth is perfect...I'll have to just love Metz for Metz and take the good with the bad.
Finally, I'll leave you with some humor. I asked my students to describe pictures today that dealt with the theme "freedom of the press." One picture depicted a pen in a box (could symbolize writing as a gift or the fact that writing is dead) and I was writing my students responses on the board. I made a big mistake by putting some of my letters too close together. Here was my sentence: "pen is a gift". I tried to fix the mistake, but the damage was already done....how juvenile, right?