Thinking

I taught my first college class in a long, long time yesterday.  It happened in my own little high school room with students from my school.  It's a dual-enrollment thing offered by our local community college so they can get early credit for the core classes they'll need regardless of where they're going.

As I was standing there going over the class syllabus, I was amazed at how different it felt to be doing that again.  It was the same place, the same student population (although none of them are actually mine during the day), the same equipment surrounding me.  How I felt behind that podium was completely different.

I know that I am different with AP than I am with my regular classes to some degree because they have to be pushed harder and faster, but they are still high school kids in a high school world.  High school rules apply.  High school rules are all too often about giving about a million chances, about taking anything that is turned in.  Even though I have a reputation for being one of the "harder" teachers (as in students flee my class in droves at the beginning of the year), I know that I, too, frequently err on the side of mercy because they are still kids.  Not every time.  I won't get into my philosophy on this here.  It's long and it's complex, and it would be a whole blog by itself.

College is another ballgame.  I had forgotten what it feels like to be able to tell people to their faces that you will not take any assignment they turn in to you that has those stupid little edges that come out of a notebook without perforations because that's NOT PROPER PAPER.  I had forgotten what it is like to be able to tell people on the very first day of class that after the second time you have to say something to them about their cell phones they will be dismissed from your room (not sent down to the office, blah, blah, blah) and told not to come back until they have a conference with you.  Then they can be readmitted to the course at your discretion.  The ability to tell students that after they are absent I get to decide whether or not they CAN do makeup work for me is at my discretion based upon their explanation of their absence is almost totally foreign after so long in K-12.

It's not about power tripping.  Maybe it sounds like that.  I don't mean for it to be.  I will likely never have to use that cell phone rule.  Actually, I really don't care if they slip them out of their pockets to check the time, if you want to know the truth.  Everybody has done it. Most likely, I will allow anyone who is absent (unless they tell me "Uh, I just didn't come because I didn't want to" to do makeup work.  What this stuff gives that I don't have in my current environment, maybe, is the sense that what is going on is important.  It brings a maturity and a focus to the learning.  The stuff in that syllabus says, "You are here for a reason.  You are going to be doing something that matters.  If you can't get on board with that, get out.  The rest of us have important stuff to do.  We don't have time to waste with trivial shit."  I wish there was more of that intensity in high school education.

It's just a little thing, just a little class, just a little hybrid comp course.  But it's got me thinking.  I can't say that it doesn't.