Let them eat cake!

So I'm sitting in my Honors Literature room a few minutes before class starts and a student raises her hand and asks, "Can we have cake?" 

Well sure, why not? Cake in class would be a great idea, now that we're no longer operating under those strict Covid protocols that outlawed food and drink in the classrooms. However, on the first day of class I'm not generally equipped to serve cake to students, so I guess the answer to the question is: Yes, but not today.

I'm trying to say Yes to students more often because they're coming to my class after all those Covid disruptions and I want to create a comfortable and challenging learning environment, but also because I'm aware that some people find English teachers scary. I don't think I'm particularly intimidating but then I'm not an 18-year-old freshperson, so what do I know? So I say yes to cake (but not today).

I also gave a qualified yes to a student who emailed me last week with a question related to my new no-laptops-in-the-classroom policy. I told him about the problem I had last year with students being so busy doing on unrelated things on their laptops (emailing, assignments for other classes, shopping, games) that they simply weren't available to engage in class discussions, and I told the student that if he can meet with other students in the class and come up with a proposal that will meet their needs for technology while meeting my need to have students engage in class discussion, then I'll be happy to negotiate. I hope to give students a sense of agency, but not so much agency that they'll disengage from class entirely. We'll see how it works.

And we'll see how I work too. I've taught two first-year classes back-to-back this morning and I'll teach two sophomore-level classes back-to-back this afternoon, which is a workable schedule. This is the first time in 20 years that I haven't had an 8 a.m. class, but I was ready to go at 8 anyway. Old habits die hard! This morning's classes went well, with students appearing alert, curious, and eager to ask questions. Let's hope they're as interested in learning as they are in eating cake. 

My first-day-of-school picture.