I woke up this morning and said as I walked to the bathroom that I am beginning to feel like I never want to wake up again. No, I don’t mean that. What I am feeling, along with my continued illness, is overwhemled by decision of some years ago to teach. There have been some successes and some frustrations but, right now this choice is causing me to find some work that is less tenuous. Being an adjunct, per contract, is not allowing me to reach my goals. Having to do so many things, to find many different income sources, larger and smaller, takes too damn much energy.
I didn’t mention I had a meeting with the Dean of my dept. last week. Our chat was okay. However, one thing I’ve never done but will most certainly in the future is to request a student drop my class if they are a problem. In the past I’ve always tried to keep all students in classes because if the class doesn’t make (the required number for continuing) then, it could possibly be cancelled. That has happened once. The primary reason for doing that is student evaluations of teacher performance. There is a percentage, or range, that is acceptable. In all the classes I’ve had problem students the evaluations are at the bad end of the scale. That has got to be better for me in the long run, however long this run is going to be, because it feeds into the interaction with other students. Those evaluations are as charged with emotion as they are with facts. It’s crazy… anyway, let me go fix some breakfast or something. Well, maybe lunch now that it’s 10am.
