Disheartening Holidays

So today marked the first of three days before the school's holiday break officially begins. Now to clarify foremost, I don't particularly enjoy this time of the year. Certainly it's nice seeing people and the giving and receiving of gifts is always enjoyable, but something about this time of year just makes me feel bleak and gloomy. It may have something to do with not getting enough sunlight, but I think it's more about the wider issues of commercialism and a host of other things which don't particularly serve the purposes of this blog.

But it is with these in mind that I went down to our holiday buffet -- set in the room the farthest away from the school, where only myself and one of the assistant principals were. Eating in mostly silence a few bites of some alright brownies. On the whole, it was just really depressing.

In regards to my students' papers that I talked about last time, I do feel mostly better. Ms. N assured me that, in fact, no lives would be forfeit and no colleges would be unaccepting of a single poor paper grade.

I think my feeling so down and harried in the last post stemmed from foremost my girlfriend departing for home in Illinois on Sunday, where she will be for the next month (and far away from myself), but also a student comment that she "felt uncomfortable with a student teacher grading papers." That felt like a kick to the gut. Had I done something so wrong? Were these truly good and worthy papers which I had unfairly and unjustly penalized with my grades?

Well, yes and no. Yes, the papers were well written. Yes, they were in many cases displays of analysis and careful thought that reflected on the unjust treatment the Narrator received at the hands of society. And yet, several didn't follow the directions I had given. These are the papers which I have been going back to -- not the papers of those who struggled but the ones of those whose analysis was good and yet who didn't follow the directions.

Now, it occurs to me that a creative and engaging paper is one which should be rewarded. However, is every paper you're going to write for college (and let us be frank, AP is without question a college preparatory course) going to reward creativity? If a teacher of a lecture class asks you "Write a summary of Chapters Six and Seven that mentions everything I've listed on the board," and you write a critique of the chapters, is that fulfilling the assignment?

I think that, in my experience, most teachers will fail that paper. I gave two weeks to work on the papers and projects (and interestingly I've heard no major complaints about the projects); including time in-class when I specifically made myself available to answer questions and provide feedback on writing. Out of a class of eighteen, three students asked me to look over their work.

So I don't feel any longer that I am proving ruinous to some of my students lives. Maybe their dispositions, but I think lives might be a bit much at this stage in the game. A poor paper grade is not going to make or break these students averages -- this course is designed by Ms. N to be tougher, but a single paper isn't going to prove the end of the world.

And lastly, as I present my defense to, well, the Internet (for what that is worth), each of these papers was read and commented upon by Ms. N, the established teacher with over thirty years of experience under her belt. If she had seen any grades which looked heinously amiss, she would have brought me to task for it.

And so I am not going to beat myself up over this or look desperately for a solution to a problem that is a molehill and not a mountain. If need be, the grades can be curved towards success if Ms. N deems it appropriate, but that will depend on how many students did well and how many did poorly.

I don't think I'm the most popular person in the class right now, but for what it's worth, I don't think I did a poor job.