One last week between now and the start of the fall semester at the university, which means I will also be teaching Composition to the young'uns who are coming in as freshmen. I really haven't even thought about the classes I'm signed up to take, to be honest (and for some reason, I signed up for four classes, I may re-think that by drop time). No, it's been all about thinking about me standing in front of a room, telling people "I'll be your teacher for this semester, and I will not tolerate any having of fun or joke-telling. I will run this classroom with an iron fist, you hear me?"
Though in my own experience as a student, such teachers rarely were memorable or that good at their jobs. No, the teachers I liked and from whom I learned the most managed to balance out discipline and joviality. If you messed up something in their class, you didn't fear their loud yelling so much as their lack of any yelling, just a stern look of disapproval and disappointment. I hope to emulate that in my own teaching this year. But if I have to, I will lower the mother-f*&%-ing boom on those young punks.
Some things I hope to not do or not do as much:
1.) Be online - a simple look at my activity log on Facebook for any day over the past three months is enough to shame me into considering rehab...even as I type this up and plan on posting it on FB. I never said I was perfect. I did cut back on online "killing time" shit last year with my school work, and I imagine my students would prefer it if I placed their work over any time I could be spending trading jokes with friends online. It helps that I don't have internet at my place, though I do have a TV, which leads me to number 2
2.) Watch TV - this is helped by the fact that a lot of my shows are off the air or just on nights where it'd be far better for me to sleep. Jon Stewart leaving the Daily Show, for one (though I for one welcome our new fake-news anchor who is also named Trevor), Colbert being on the Late Show now also. I love The Nightly Show, and @midnight, but my schedule is thus: Monday, Wednesday and Friday I got to be up and ready to go to teach at eight in the morning. So no late nights Tuesdays or Thursdays, and it wouldn't hurt me to get to bed earlier the rest of the week. Yes, there's this thing called DVR, no I don't have it. I've over-indulged on TV this summer (good and bad), there really are fewer and fewer things for me to get excited about (I refuse to watch NBC after the way they shat all over Community, for instance).
3.) Stay up late - I think if I'm "staying up late" on a night where I'm not planning on getting up at five the next morning, it had better be because I'm working on something for one of my classes or working on something I've assigned my students and which they have turned in and are expecting a grade on. Because few college students are pacified with the "sticker for participation" tactic anymore.
4.) Read for fun - I've overindulged this summer, which is good. A lot of the "reading for fun" became, either by design or by accident, reading-for-my-creative-thesis, and I've already got a pretty hefty list of things that I could say inspired me directly or indirectly with whatever shape my final thesis ends up being. I'll still need the occasional trashy cash-in book about "stupid things" like sports or celebrities behaving badly, but I hope to limit that.
5.) Eat crappy food - my waistline expanded over the first two semesters of grad school, and I was all set to start getting up early and walking around Sertoma, as well as cutting back on the obvious crap I ate. But then I forgot to set my alarm the first full day off from school, and it's been that way ever since. I hope to have time to do the bare minimum of exercise, but cutting back on terrible food (in that it's terrible for you, not terrible to eat) would help immensely.
Now, having said all that: plans tend to change once they meet reality, and I imagine many of those things will falter when confronted with whatever reality springs up. But I know this going in, and I know that I don't want to let anyone down, least of all my students who put work into their class assignments (I would hope, anyway). I volunteered for the early shift, mostly because I figured I'd have an easier time of it with parking (I hope, anyway) but also because I figure it's best to get the teaching out of the way early in the day, like going third or fourth in a speech class. I hope so, anyway. There's a whole lot of hope in this, I guess. Teaching is one of those things where you never know how you'll be at it until you try it. And I'm about to get my call-up in a little over a week's time.
Hopefully I don't break a leg literally
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