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One of my students today apologised in e-mail for missing last night's class. She did not mention that she had also missed an extra-help session I had arranged with her for before the class. She works in retail, and had to close the store. I understand this.
She also asked whether she could hand in last week's homework next week, and whether I could send her this week's lesson.
No, and no.
Last week's homework was to do some research to prepare for an in-class discussion. This week's lesson involved taking up the quiz my students wrote last week, the aforementioned class discussion, a brief discussion of editing fiction for which I don't have a typed-up lesson plan or handout prepared, a brief discussion of audience analysis for non-fiction editing (technical, educational, and instructional for the most part), and groupwork on their ongoing in-class project, during which I spent about five minutes working with each group.
Thing is, I felt like it was a pretty good class. The discussion of fiction editing was lively, and I think we looked at a lot of the key skills that fiction editors need. I think they get the idea of working with the author to make the story work for the readers. Working with the groups gave me a good sense that most of them have a clear understanding of the readerships for their respective publications, that they are thinking about visual materials to support the text, and that they're going to be able to craft a publication that meets their readers' needs within the format of the publication they've chosen, and let me address individual problem areas.
I wound up spending about 20 minutes after class working with a few students to clear up some misconceptions and problem areas, and that was fine.
I can't reproduce any of that in an e-mail.
What really gets me, though, is the sheer entitlement. I know that my students can't always make class, and that life can interfere. But it's their responsibility to manage that, and find a note-taking buddy. It's not my job to make sure students who miss class, for whatever reason, get the material I deliver in class, by hook or by crook. It's my job to provide 270 hours of in-class instruction and assessment (not including marking or prep, for which I do not get compensated). That's 3 compensated teaching hours, per week. I generally spend another 3–9 hours each week prepping the next week's lesson and marking. Once per semester, I teach a class almost entirely off-the-cuff, because I haven't had time to prep, and I'm just barely good enough at what I do to pull that off (I have a bunch of material I can use for extra lessons). I don't have a textbook, so I've had to assemble all instructional materials from scratch. And there's no rule that says I have to have every lesson written down, so I don't always write lessons down, beyond the bare outlines.
So, no. No, I'm not going to send last night's lesson to this student. You really did just have to be there.
She also asked whether she could hand in last week's homework next week, and whether I could send her this week's lesson.
No, and no.
Last week's homework was to do some research to prepare for an in-class discussion. This week's lesson involved taking up the quiz my students wrote last week, the aforementioned class discussion, a brief discussion of editing fiction for which I don't have a typed-up lesson plan or handout prepared, a brief discussion of audience analysis for non-fiction editing (technical, educational, and instructional for the most part), and groupwork on their ongoing in-class project, during which I spent about five minutes working with each group.
Thing is, I felt like it was a pretty good class. The discussion of fiction editing was lively, and I think we looked at a lot of the key skills that fiction editors need. I think they get the idea of working with the author to make the story work for the readers. Working with the groups gave me a good sense that most of them have a clear understanding of the readerships for their respective publications, that they are thinking about visual materials to support the text, and that they're going to be able to craft a publication that meets their readers' needs within the format of the publication they've chosen, and let me address individual problem areas.
I wound up spending about 20 minutes after class working with a few students to clear up some misconceptions and problem areas, and that was fine.
I can't reproduce any of that in an e-mail.
What really gets me, though, is the sheer entitlement. I know that my students can't always make class, and that life can interfere. But it's their responsibility to manage that, and find a note-taking buddy. It's not my job to make sure students who miss class, for whatever reason, get the material I deliver in class, by hook or by crook. It's my job to provide 270 hours of in-class instruction and assessment (not including marking or prep, for which I do not get compensated). That's 3 compensated teaching hours, per week. I generally spend another 3–9 hours each week prepping the next week's lesson and marking. Once per semester, I teach a class almost entirely off-the-cuff, because I haven't had time to prep, and I'm just barely good enough at what I do to pull that off (I have a bunch of material I can use for extra lessons). I don't have a textbook, so I've had to assemble all instructional materials from scratch. And there's no rule that says I have to have every lesson written down, so I don't always write lessons down, beyond the bare outlines.
So, no. No, I'm not going to send last night's lesson to this student. You really did just have to be there.
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Oh good. As my next post indicates, I've been feeling conflicted about my own response. So I was worried that you had been enlightened as to the fact that I'm a big entitled meanie.
I think "thoughtlessly" is the key word. I don't know what it's like for university TAs so much, but I do know that most of my students 1) think I get more money than I do for my teaching, 2) think I get some compensation for prep time, 3) don't realise that I've pretty much had to build my course from scratch. They complain that there's no textbook, which is valid, but don't realise that this is because a textbook doesn't really exist for Intro to Editing in Canada. I need to write one, or compile it, and in order to do that, I need a chunk of time that I don't have.
As far as they're concerned, I'm providing them a service, for which they have paid, and they're just asking for what they need in order to complete the course. As far as I'm concerned they're asking me to do stuff for which I will not be compensated.
Generally, I really, really enjoy teaching. Tuesday's class, while a bit scattered, was fun. I mean, I talked about books and editing with people who are interested in those things, for three hours! It's fun to help people pull together things they already know, and apply those things to a new context, and it's fun to show them tricks and expose them to ideas that are entirely new to them. Most students appreciate the time I spend, both in class and out. And some of them are really smart, funny, and interesting, and bring their own interesting experiences to the class. And that's really cool.