I hate marking

It's that time of the term: I have thick stacks of unsatisfying marking to plow through somehow. By next week, I'll have the rhythm of it, and I will have given up the idea that anyone will read the comments I am writing. It will be mind-numbing, but it will move more quickly.

Tonight, I am still trying to teach while I mark. It slows me down. I write questions I suspect students will never read, much less answer. I wish they had clearer heads and a better eye for detail. I hope, a little, to prod them into thought.

And I wish, a little harder, that I could read them writing about something that pulls at them, something that inspires them, something that they believe is important in a way that they cannot pretend to believe this assignment in this course could ever be important.

I so want them to present their best selves to the working world. Not for the world - which will not care very much. Not for the college - which I think could try harder to draw out those best selves. For them.

Because under the drudgery, I really like my students.

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