Thursday, May 18, 2006

End-Of-Semester Sighs and Anxieties

I submitted my grades electronically last night at midnight or so.

What's exciting now is to wait for the equivocating emails to roll in.

"What grade did I get on the final?"

"How could I have goten an ____ [put in whatever grade you like -- there's always someone who is dissatisfied]."

This is probably the hardest part of my job -- demarcating differences between ABs and Bs, for example, and then explaining that to the students. This semster I had to ruin one very bright woman's 4.0. Of course, it is not my fault per se. But it all seems so arbitrary in some sense. I could have asked different things on the final, for instance. Also, how much does one grade matter. At the margin though, it was this grade that dropped her average below perfection. Alas.

Along similar lines, the pediatrician yesterday gave us a lecture on letting Mr. Big cry himself to sleep in order to teach him how to pacify himself.

Its hard to be the bad guy.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I love and hate being the teacher (OK TA in my case). I offered an extra session to my students because I heard that people felt they needed a little more help. I passed around a sign-up sheet for people who were interested. And OF COURSE its the students who are doing well that sign up! Argh.

Letting them cry is so so SO hard. But believe me, it is so worth it to teach them to get themselves to sleep. At 10 months, the Niblet nurses and gets in bed sleepy, but not asleep. When she comes into light sleep and awakenings during the night she can get herself back to sleep 90% of the time.

So worth it.