no one would expect
this level of survival
(tropical desert)
i know how they feel
trapped outside with no control
over their own fate
But what if the new student I got yesterday is the brother who was left behind? What if he doesn’t have her sass, her grit, her audacity? What if the Afghan-Qatar-Chicago-Denver move took too much out of him, and he can’t learn?
But what if the first student today, soul scarred by the Taliban, here without services, without a caseworker, without parents, without a car, without a word of English, could get a car service? What if I send an email and see if I can also find food for him and his 20-year-old brother/parent?
But what if the second new student today, Salvadoran, has never seen or used a computer? What if she doesn’t know that the birthdate here is listed month, day, year, not day, month, year, and if I say, “Pon tu fecha de nacimiento”, she’ll start with the DAY? What if my other Salvadoran is in my other class, and never with her, because there are so many students coming in that I’m running out of space?
But what if my student who started last week, who can only understand a bit of French and only if Google Translate verbalizes it, because she can’t read or write, can’t find her way to the next class? What if she has pictures on her phone of all the places she has to navigate, along with 1,900 other students, because she can’t distinguish the numbers? What if anyone here or any translator could speak Pulaar, from Mauritania, and ask her why her parents pulled her out of school seven years ago?
But what if… what if it were Friday, and not just… Tuesday?
it began with needs
now they’ve met one hundred K
and brought these smiles
Colorado views
wildflowers, puppy steps:
a perfect Sunday
Thank you for the email. I received my evaluation. I feel that the evaluation system at this University places way too much emphasis on the discussion posts over everything else. Alas, it seems that no matter how many things I add (announcements, responding to every student during the initial week when they post information about themselves), it is never enough. I don’t always post a question with every discussion post that I create, but I do on most.
Now I see it is expected that we post six times in the discussion, not five, and that EVERY post must be more interactive.
The other feedback I received was about grading. I post within each criterion to offer specific feedback on each area of the paper, yet again this wasn’t sufficient. They suggested I insert comments on each individual paper. The amount of time that would take… I have been an actual teacher in an actual classroom for 21 years, and I know how much time that would take.
If the University would truly like to continuously increase their expectations for the adjunct professors without ever increasing their pay by even a dime, their expectations are unrealistic. I have been teaching here for fourteen and a half years and have pretty much never seen a pay increase.
These are things I mentioned in my self-evaluation.
I was offered the opportunity to evaluate myself, but what about student evaluations? As an educator in the public school system, 14% of my annual evaluation is based directly on student feedback.
I wonder what my students would place emphasis on—how frequently I post in the discussions, or how frequently I respond to their messages, how tolerant I am of their tardy work, how accommodating I am to them by providing two stellar exemplars for each paper?
Yet I will try my best to improve because that is who I am even though this job’s expectations and interactions with me are demoralizing at worst and mediocre at best.
Thank you for your time.
sometimes markers win
when nothing else can save us
from Tuesday’s trauma
Step Write Up 