Just keep swimming

by Rob Shenk

For those who are interested, I am managing to keep my head above water, but my arms are getting tired. As you know, I had to drop a class and go back and take the prerequisite course. At the moment, that is going well. I manage to understand the lecture and am able to contribute to solutions and answer the questions of classmates. I’m even managing the homework with little error.

My education-focused course is going well thus far. I’ve led a class discussion with relative success and received decent marks on my first paper. As we start the research for our final paper, I am starting to think about potential topics of research for a dissertation.

The math course that was initially going well may be taking a turn however. At the beginning of the semester, I understood every lecture, but the homework took forever to finish. In fact I didn’t typically finish all of the problems in time. This past week, I’ve found myself feeling lost in lecture, but having a better understanding of the homework.

Recently I find myself better able to complete problems on my own before discussing them with the study group. In fact, I finished today’s assignment hours before class. This might not seem like a major feat to you, but believe me I’m celebrating. We receive our problems on Friday or Saturday and they are due the following Thursday. I touch those problems every day for a minimum of an hour. And up until now I was struggling to finish. In fact, I had to visit with the professor on one of this week’s problems, and we spent over an hour in solving it. That’s one problem with the assistance of the professor. So can I get a virtual high five for completing my homework on time?

by House Of Sims

As a teacher, I’m still negotiating the balance between leniency and strictness. My biggest issue as a junior high teacher was that I was too nice. I loved teaching and I wanted the students to like me. I had to be reminded that no grown woman needed 12 and 13 year olds as friends. But I loved the humor of students at that age, and I was too easy going with them. The result was that my classroom management was nonexistent by the end of the year.

So one of my joys in this environment was the belief that classroom management wouldn’t be an issue. If they didn’t want to pay attention in class, they were wasting momma and daddy’s money and their time. Not my cross to bear. I can’t write a referral and send them to the office, so as long as they don’t disturb those around them, was I to stop them from texting during lecture? While the answer may seem obvious to you, the verdict is still out for me.

My larger issue is still the leniency though. As a junior high teacher, I was always willing to give extra credit or make up assignments so that my students had a chance to pass even if they had blown off most of the work in the grading period. The policy here is no late work. Period. If you're absent test day, I'm sorry. You'll have to do well on the remaining tests.

We have a “five minutes late and you’re absent” rule. But I tend to give every one a chance to sign the roster if they are present by the first 15 minutes of class. I’ve been occasionally persuaded to let students turn homework in by 5:00 if there were problems that they didn’t understand. When students approached me to let me know that their financial aid hadn’t come in yet and that they couldn’t buy books without it, I was inclined to extend due dates on assignments.

On the surface, I suppose that these are small things. But experience has shown me that the small things add up. And I have a feeling that I’m going to have to learn some things the hard way.