Overloaded

Ok, so my barrage of posts right before the first round was due seems to have left me a little bit dry.

In my time away I've been very overwhelmed with schoolwork. Apparently it's not recommended to take both 125A and 125B in the same semester. I did not know this before, and I completely understand it now. Though, it would be a lot easier to handle without a certain selection of any of my other classes right now.

It's got me thinking about high school, and how teachers semi-coordinate their assignment schedules in high school to avoid overloading students with too many big projects all due at once. While I appreciated the efforts while in school and having less homework to ignore at any one time, I'm now wondering if it does some harm as a manner of college prep.

For the students who actually did their homework and got used to a sort of even work load, how are they supposed to deal with midterms and essays all being due within two weeks? Especially for those who are working full time and dealing with other things that high schoolers often don't have to think about at all.

I do like the idea, but think that maybe it should be done in moderation, maybe only in the first half of the year. That way, student can get a taste of the insanity that they're going to be facing in only a few more years. Every high school is a college prep school now, right?

Taking my own Advice

It’s not until now, less then an hour before this first batch is due, while I’m finally putting them all together in a Word document that I noticed my suggestion to myself in the very first entry.

I’m starting to think that it’s kind of a good thing that I’m such a scattered student right now. This should allow me to be my own best teacher in managing to get a student back on track. I mean, if I write things down for myself and then don’t follow them, I really can’t expect anyone else to follow them either.

So the next round of these should be a bit different than this first one has been. I’m going to start trying to make time to do everything in a way that I can be proud of. While there have been times that I’ve wanted to focus more on being funny and having people come back because they enjoy reading this blog, the good writing should follow if I’m paying enough attention to what it is that I’m saying. Heck, I might even find a way to be funny while saying something worthwhile!

I hope that the lesson I learn from this isn’t so much how I work best, but to really teach myself that people need to find their own best practices and go with that. My biggest problem with high school was that my teachers always seemed to expect me to do things their way rather than my own, when I could have given them a much better product had I been allowed a little wiggle room. With a little luck, I’ll really be able to learn that for my own students.