Before Classes Begin

It is a project. It may be a monstrous project. It wrings me of energy just contemplating it. I do not look forward to that. But I do look forward . . . I have a feeling about this . . . Something is going to go right. . . . The students will know. . . They will know and they will learn.

Nearly three weeks have passed since the last semester. For three weeks, all I've done is proctor some exams, mark exams, make thousands of entries on spreadsheets, calculate scores, and determine grades.

Is that what teaching is about?

In all my classroom experience, in all the "experiments," and in every presentation and workshop that I give for teachers, never do I think to emphasize grades as the end product of teaching. Nor is it a worthy goal of learning.

Of the greatest failures of systematized education, the obsession with evaluations is the most aggravating and distracting. Grades are arbitrary. Don't people know that. Grades don't mean anything a day or two after you receive them.

And all I've done for the past few weeks is crunch numbers to translate them to a letter grade. There was virtually no time to do proper planning for my coming classes. And now, the day before they begin, my feeling is not so much stress, it is overwhelm. And I will leave it to the next post to tell you whuy?