I teach a weird class at my local college. It's required and the requirements for the course keep shifting. I accidentally renamed it in a meeting last summer. It's kind of a bonkers situation. It doesn't help that I was hired to teach literature and now it's mostly writing - if I have a weakness in my specialty, it's being objective about someone else's comma placements.
So, the reading list is bizarre and I make them go to two extracurricular events on campus - which changes every semester and there is no hint about what they will be until the week before classes start - and make them write THREE papers with "I" statements. One is an opinion piece, one is an insight piece, and one is a self-reflective research paper. I'm a monster.
It's complicated and multimedia and I ask them a lot of questions hoping that some of them will actually think about what they really think and why. At the end of the semester, I always doubt myself and what I'm doing. It's never the same each semester and I always feel like it's getting worse.
And then I got this:
It's five pages of tying together our readings, our discussions, an event I didn't even assign - they went of their own volition! I'm done. I can quit.
I am legit keeping this forever and reading it every time I feel inadequate.
#If they are bullshitting me - DO NOT TELL ME!