Good-bye, 39!

Today is my last day to be 39. As of 2AM, or there-bouts, I'll turn 40. How am I spending my last day on this side of the hill? I'm trying to figure out what the hell I'm going to do in my classes for the next week. Today's topic: The Constitution & Early Republic. That's 1787 to approximately 1828. My problem isn't too much information, it's too little that I find interesting. Articles of Confederation, blah, blah, blah ... rise of political parties ... blah, blah, blah, federalists vs anti-federalists, blah, blah, blah. Major snoozefest. I'm planning to focus on the 3/5 Compromise and gradual emancipation. When in doubt, stop talking about dead boring white guys.

The first few weeks of the semester have been draining and exhausting. I'm reworking lectures from last semester and had the audacity to hold students accountable for the reading assignments. As of last week (Week 3 of a 16-week semester), about a quarter of them still didn't have the required books for my class. Many whined that "the bookstore didn't have the book." One student claimed that he had looked in every bookstore imaginable. So, I imagined all the possible places for a bookstore. Imagine a bookstore in the sky, he looked there. Imagine a bookstore underground, he looked there. Imagine a bookstore up his ass, he looked there.

After conducting my own investigation in the real bookstore, I discovered that the campus bookstore at Big City University does, in fact, suck. They only ordered enough books for half of my students, and seemed to think that I was unreasonable to expect otherwise. My students could also get their books from 2 other nearby bookstores, but those stores also ran out of books. My students could also get the books online, but very few of them seem to know that you can use the internet to buy more than iTunes and porn.

So, what did my students do? Did they ask their classmates if they could borrow their books? No. Most of them in this predicament threw up their hands and figured that they just couldn't do the assigned reading and paper assignment because they didn't have their own personal copy of the book. Many of them assumed that I'd accept their paper when and if their personal copy of the book ever materialized. No, I said. I explained that they needed to bring me documentation that they had tried to get the book before the paper due date, and I would accept their paper at the next class. Not when their book arrived, at the next class. So far, I'm not impressed with my students' problem-solving abilities.

I explained that the class didn't stop and wait for them. Without access to the book, they were 3 weeks behind in the reading. At that point, some of them turned white and looked like their bowels had just turned to water. Others shrugged ambivalently. I'm no psychic, but I predict that they won't be my best students.

Tomorrow, I get to explain that I'm not going to prepare a study guide that lays out exactly what they need to study for the exam. I've tried the study guide approach before and found that it only encourages students to study history as a set of random names, events, and places that have absolutely no relationship to each other. Even I'd hate history if I had to memorize a bunch of random stuff. So, instead, I'm drawing their attention to the assigned reading in the textbook and my lectures. Reading and lectures that they should have been keeping up with. Reading that I'm sure none of them has even started.

I know what you're asking - aren't these people in college? And, what does any of this have to do with your birthday? Well, I'm giving myself a birthday present. I'm heading off the avalanche of student test anxiety by cancelling class on Thursday. I'll explain to the little darlins that I'm sure that they haven't been keeping up with the reading so I'm giving them extra time to study. When the next exam rolls around, they'll know that they need to keep up or they get what they deserve.

Yes, they're in college, and yes, they should expect to keep up with the reading. Yes, I should just plow ahead and tell them to shut up. Thing is, I don't want to spend my birthday week dealing with a bunch of hostile whiners. This is so much more about me than it is about them. Happy birthday to me!