Professorial fallibility

This morning I couldn't get my online gradebook to accept a grade because of a flaw in the due date. I looked more closely: according to the online gradebook, that assignment was due 1/15/2012. One year ago. Nasty gradebook! Who put that due date in wrong?

Um, that would be me. In fact, further examination revealed that I typed in "2012" for every due date for every assignment in every class this semester. And the gradebooks won't work until I fix every due date. One at a time.

Thank heaven for copy-and-paste.

That's not the only dumb thing I've done while preparing my classes this semester. The other day I stood in front of a classroom puzzling over a handout stating that students will submit 5 reading responses at 10 points each for a total of 100 points. "One of those numbers is obviously wrong," I told the students, and the pointed out that the correct figure appeared elsewhere on the syllabus.

"I shouldn't try to write syllabi while I'm sick," I said, but here's the thing: I wrote my syllabi and set up my online gradebooks before I got sick. I completed all my class preps by last Wednesday, and then I went home and didn't leave the house for four days. I might have caught the errors if I'd spent those four days looking over my syllabi and gradebooks, but I was too busy coughing.

Professorial fallibility on display! What a great way to start the semester.