the joy of teaching

that's the title of the book i had to buy for my teaching class this semester. it sounds super cheesy and lame. (and the book is kind of lame.) but i am seriously understanding the idea behind it right now.

today was my students' peer review day, where they had to have a rough draft in class, exchange with a partner, answer the questions i asked them about their peer's draft, and then discuss their comments with their partner. peer review is something that NOBODY likes, but it really can be useful and helpful, if you're doing it right. i've struggled with getting my students interested in it, both last semester while i was TAing and this semester the first time around. but today was FANTASTIC! they sat and seriously made comments, working for half an hour, and then held real, long, detailed conversations about their papers with their partners.

i thought i would just jump for joy. it was amazing. i have no idea what i did or why it worked this time (or really, how substantial or helpful their comments actually were), but just the fact of their engagement in the process made me SO HAPPY. i wanted to give them all a hug as they walked out of the room.

i don't know if i'm just really lucky or if i just don't know about the impending dangers ahead, but i feel like i've got a really great bunch of students this semester. they're way better than the students i was TAing last semester and they all try so hard! they ask if they can go to the bathroom during class and send me cute emails saying things like "i'm so sorry that i missed class this morning. i know this is a bad excuse but my alarm clock didn't go off. i just wanted to let you know out of courtesy." obviously some of them are hanging out on the computer during class but most of them pay attention, participate, and a few of them even laugh at my jokes.

i don't know if they actually like me or my class but i really like them. and i love teaching! the only hard thing is just grading those papers and having to give some of them C's.