Getting on with life, one damn term paper at a time

College English teachers, even the young idealistic ones ones, will tell you that end-of-term grading is THE most grueling part of their jobs.

It's not that there aren't hidden delights in there. This morning I read one of the most entertaining papers ever about the invention of the flush toilet by a student interested in a public health career. It was chock full of facts about how toilets and sewers improved public health, as well as those fascinating tidbits that never fail to tickle the imagination.

For example, did you know that the medieval citizens of Paris collected human waste from homes and piled it up outside the city's gates to keep invaders away? And that those who did the dirty work were considered to have pretty good jobs complete with a fancy French title? And that I was reminded of that hilarious "lovely filth" scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail? (Remember, Terry Jones is a medieval scholar first and a comedian second.) Check out the clip.

But for every great paper, there's usually an "evil twin" that is incoherent, poorly explained, loses focus, copies and pastes large extracts from original sources ... and generally causes you to question your capabilities as a teacher, even if you've been doing it more than 30 years as I have.

Constantly questioning yourself and your skills is something every teacher has to balance. Focus on the students who don't cut the mustard and you can end up dumbing down the course. Pat yourself on the back for all your excellent students, and you end up serving only the needs of the gifted and talented ... who would probably be good writers without you at all.

While I've had lots of work experience in the public and non-profit sectors doing other things, my bread-and-butter work has always been teaching. As a result, I tend to mark time by terms instead of seasons. My year begins in the fall with the academic calendar. I plan my vacations around school breaks instead of by the weather.

T.S. Eliot said life was measured out in coffee spoons. Mine is measured out in term papers--about 9,000 to date. God willing, I might manage another few hundred in the next four years, even though I've cut back my teaching load in the run up to official retirement.

One of the benefits of the end-of-term grading frenzy is that it is complete and total distraction. I do not think about personal finances, my heart valve problem, my graying and thinning hair, the presidential candidates, or the fact that my platelet count jumped nearly 100 points at my last test, into the 700 range. (Hematologist said to call if they got into the 800s, so we'll see what the next test brings.)

Nope. Everything goes on hold. I live on coffee, fruit, and peanut butter on toast. I get into a rhythm of grading three papers, then taking break for an hour or so by reading a chapter in whatever novel I've got going, then back to the grind. At least twice a day, I make it a point to walk around the building twice, regardless of the weather. You need lots of fresh air and oxygen for some of these papers to make sense.

Once the papers are graded and final scores submitted, I can feel the load lift. Quite literally. I suddenly see several days stretched before me full of time. Time for getting a haircut, having coffee with friends, going visiting, taking a day trip, stretching out in the lawn chair with my binoculars to watch the birds in the back yard, going to the beach.

But the papers, those dratted, wonderful, convoluted, fascinating, time-consuming papers. I realize here in the last trimester of my life that these are my legacy. What the students learn, what they bother to retain, whether they are more competent and confident writers, whether they hate writing tasks, whether they better appreciate the written form of the English language, whether they "pwn" it, as Our Young People say. What I say to students on these papers--and what I have said to students on these, their first college magnum opi, is what will be left of my love of reading and writing, floating around in the minds of students after I'm gone.

I can't say these musings make the bad papers any easier to read. But they do remind me that as I move away from my career as a teacher, I have not become completely jaded, I am still good for something, and that I still find joy in my profession, Those are all good things.

Be well!

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