Counting Down the Weeks

...until the end of my TAship, that is.

I'm disappointed that I haven't loved teaching this semester as much as I have in previous years.

At first, I thought that the problem was me.

Perhaps a year off from teaching had resulted in a deterioration in my teaching abilities. Or perhaps I wasn't connecting with the students because I was still working through my reverse culture shock. Or perhaps I wasn't focused enough on the class because I was looking for a job.

But I've realized that the problem isn't me. It's the students.

Each week, they come to class without a copy of the Good Book, which is really inexcusable in a class that focuses on the Good Book. And each week I'm faced with blank faces when I ask for specific references from the text being studied, as though it's unreasonable of me to ask them for something more than their general impressions of the text. And the fact that they start to read when I ask about the text tells me that they haven't read the text prior to coming to class.

I understand that the students are enrolled in other courses and have a life outside of the classroom. And I understand that life is so busy that one can't get everything done.

But we're now three-quarters of the way through the course and there hasn't been a single week that they've come to class prepared.

Part of my responsibility as an instructor is to help them work through various issues pertaining to the texts being studied. But when students continually come to class unprepared, then I spend the bulk of class time doing basic reading with them instead of working on the more complex issues. I can prepare for hours on end for class, but I still need them to do some basic preparation (like reading the text!) before coming to class.

Certainly, their grades will reflect that they haven't done the work required of them. I think that that's only fair.

GPAs aside, however, they've squandered a personal learning opportunity that would have helped them (and their future flocks) understand the Good Book better. So, I'm sad for them.

But I've never had a group of students that I couldn't connect with or inspire them to care about the text and to recognize the value of this study. So, I'm sad for me, too.

And that is why I'm counting down the weeks until the end of this TAship.