Another post on negotiation and grades. I liked this one better.
There is no absolution or negotiation as grades are not given, they are earned. One major difference between this instructor and me: my office hours have been busy since the first week of school. That’s what you get when you teach a project based class. (Also what you get when you teach hundreds of students, as my colleagues can attest!)
I’m feeling far less than my best. One of my programmatic responsibilities is eating my lunch time-wise. It has been doing so all semester. This next 2-3 weeks should be some of the worst of it, and I have another program that I need to work on. Looks like that’s not getting done. I am sure that my stress, anxiety and impatience is obvious to my students. Which is not what I want, since I really do like working with them.
I wonder whether it is better to acknowledge it or to try to cover it up. I am thinking my covering abilities are not so great right now.
I’ll bet your students are feeling similarly, this time of the semester. I imagine they are all taking multiple classes and have multiple obligations to fulfill. I think they can understand that their instructors are human beings, too, who get stressed and overworked. Sometimes it can be helpful to acknowledge that things are going to be crazy for a while, so you can just move on and manage the crazy as best as possible.
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