It's February out there, folks, so the forecast is calling for waves of bad academic weather. At 8 a.m. we'll see a slow-moving mass of students unable to follow directions, followed at 9 by a brief flurry of obvious attempts at cheating, but everything will calm down by 11, when we'll see an influx of somnolent students barely able to open their mouths to discuss the reading.
And that is what we call a Wintry Mix: a little bit of awfulness in every class, all adding up to bone-chilling conditions not conducive to learning. It's the fourth week of the semester so the honeymoon is definitely over and we've settled in for that long winter slog through papers and reading assignments and exams that seem to stretch on for week after week after week, regardless of whether the groundhog sees his shadow.
I came out of every class this morning wishing I could just keep walking out the door and never come back, but it's cold outside and I can't afford to retire, so soon enough there I was back in the classroom again attempting to move yet another group of students through the morning's material.
Classes were warm enough but progress was glacial. Students didn't read, didn't write, didn't bother to show up, or showed up in body but left their warm spirits elsewhere. I'd need something sharper than an ice-scraper to break through the indifference of certain students, but all I had were words and images. Some days that's enough. Today it clearly was not.
But you know what they say about the weather in Ohio: If you don't like it, wait five minutes. The sun'll come out tomorrow! If we survive this mid-semester chill, at some point the outlook will be cloudy with a chance of comprehension, and I want to be here to see that.
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