The summer semester is finally over. Wednesday was the last day of class. My students' final portfolios are due tomorrow (Monday), but I will have them graded and done by Friday.
It's liberating to be out of this class. This is the first time I have ever had a student create so many problems for me. I thought about bitching about it and complaining and telling all the crap I went through, but I really don't want to deal with it, and most of you have already heard it. Instead, I leave you with things this semester has taught me.
The things I learned:
Lecturing is okay. My classes were an hour and a half instead of fifty minutes (like they are during the fall), which means I had to change the way that I control the flow of lessons and classes. I lectured way more than I had before. I'm not sure which method is better, but I'm going to try to lecture more this fall semester and see how it works.
Teaching without my own coursework is awesome. I really enjoyed having time to go through students' assignments (even the small ones) and give them feedback. I loved having time to actually critique writing instead of just grading it. And I especially loved not having the pressure of my own classes overshadow the learning of my students. We are told as graduate students that we are grad students first and teachers second. I think this is counterproductive. To our students, we are teachers first and grad students second. It isn't fair to the ones that we are teaching to do less than our best for them.
And finally:
One student shouldn't ruin everything, but one student can if you allow it. Be firm. Be strong. Be yourself. And when all else fails, go to your supervisor. If it wasn't for my supervisor, I would not have survived this semester.
I am really excited for next semester! Luckily, I'm well prepared, so that means I can do what I want, and right now, I just want to color and play around all day and get over this mess of a semester, which, like this sentence, felt really long, but wasn't too bad compared to others.
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