A learning experience

The first week of classes is over and what have I learned?

1. How fun a class full of senior English majors can be. I haven't taught the capstone for a few years and I had forgotten the joy of tossing an idea out on the table and watching the majors toss it around. Any class in which I'm not the only one teaching is a good class.

2. How different and smart and new every class of freshman writers can be but how nevertheless the same old questions keep coming up: Yes, the class starts promptly at 8 a.m. whether your alarm rings or not. Yes, the computer lab across the hall is a great place to print out assignments, but if the door's locked or the paper runs out, you're out of luck. No, I won't accept your homework assignment late. Yes, I do expect you to do the assignment even though you don't have a textbook because you ordered it online and it hasn't arrived yet. No, you may not borrow my textbook.

3. How old I'm getting, part 1: my Postcolonial Literature Survey is a big class in a big room and if the students in the back row don't speak up, I can't hear them.

4. How old I'm getting, part 2: the new faculty members don't appear to be a whole lot older than the students in my freshman comp class, and I seem to have more in common with the graybeards labeled "Senior Faculty" than with the fresh-faced young scholars.

But at least I'm still learning. If learning has occurred, then some good has been done here.