Finals week is hell. The week before finals is a worse hell. Yet none of these things trouble me. It must be because I’ve learned to take the bite out of the month. A long time ago I was an angry college student. Angry because I spent the last two weeks of each semester studying like a madman to recall everything I’d been taught in detail over the past few months. It is a wonder that more students aren’t driven to weed.
Everything comes down to the final, which is sometimes one of two exams you get for the entire semester. This antiquated style of teaching was outmoded then, but struggles along to this day. In my day the school sprang for stress seminars, hallways massages, and study halls. All of these contrivances were for the benefit of the student and ignored the teachers who would be forced to grade (I won’t go so far as to call scantron grading) the work in an extremely limited time window.
I went a different route. We work hard in the beginning and taper off towards the end. By then the competencies have been long since satisfied and students can reflect on what they learned without the specter of grading hanging over their head. Yes they produce work, and yes it is graded, but the grade is not terribly significant in the long scheme of things. In some ways they cannot fail at the last few weeks. They can only fail if they quit in the tougher early goings. Isn’t that how writing is supposed to be?
Some Thoughts:
- It takes a parent to understand a politician. Recently I’ve been following the ‘Fiscal Cliff’ debate and watching one group of politicians conflate a whole lot of issues into one. Children do that. You take away someones toys and suddenly you are declaring war against a child’s ability to grow and learn and be spontaneous. No, you just removed a very specific toy that made a lot of noise. The fiscal cliff stuff is centered around one party’s desire to raise–in the sense of letting cuts expire–taxes on the wealthiest 2%. The other side is willing to do that provided the medicare and social security problems are fixed today. Lord knows that is going to take time to fix and furthermore, while both are entitlements that is all they have in common. Stop making it seem like all or nothing. There are better ways to negotiate.
- Jets won by dumping Sanchize to the bench. YES. At least something good came out of a historically bad pick weekend.