one

joseph duemer on the tough work of the first week of school …

The difficulty is not, obviously, physical work, nor even just being particularly busy. The hard work of teaching is paying a certain kind of focused attention to at least two things at once: the text under discussion & the ever-changing dynamic of student responses happening in real time before your eyes & ears. The closest analogy I can think of is conducting a symphony orchestra.

(read the whole piece) … he’s got it … having good students, as I obviously do this term, tires you out like going to the gym …

on my own first week(s) … i’m very pleased with the … uh … developments … class discussion has been mostly good when it has been actual discussion and not just me spouting off … students (both seniors and sophs) are trying to listen & stay on topic & say articulately … i’ve got the usual scattering of silent customers & i aim to help them fix that … class size, though, doesn’t help much … duemer notes the benefit of moving from 25 to 20 … mine are all over 20 & it does make a difference … (i feel like a creep for saying that, knowing that many many teachers everywhere are dealing with cripplingly (?) monstrous class sizes … i’m not complaining … just wishing for the optimum) …

the class discussion boards are going very well … spent time this morning reading & counting the senior board … a pretty high level of discourse in most threads … i’ll hit the sophs soon … & i know there will be a few more trouble spots there … always are first quarter with the younguns …

getting some writing done & paying close attention to the issues therein are yet to come … that means “grammar” and vocab … and the more-than-occasional in-class essay for both groups