It is important to note that this piece was written
on Tuesday November 13, but is being released on
Wednesday November 28. So please bear that in
mind as you read through this, particularly when it
comes to time-related and holiday-related terms.
Thanks in advance.
Some time back I was in my 4pm class, working
with my partner on creating our lesson plans. After
about an hour of working, our professor stopped us
and asked “so, how are you all doing?” There were
a few mumbles and murmurs of “okay/fine/we’re alright”,
following which the professor asked “are y’all
doing better now that you have had time to work on
this in class?” which earned more enthusiastic ‘yeses’.
So then our professor stopped us from working and
asked “how many of you are feeling overwhelmed
with everything you have going on?” Now, in complete
honesty, I haven’t been feeling overwhelmed.
I do have a lot of work, but it’s such that I only have
to focus on one or two things each week. It’s like—
one week I’ll focus on one thing, next week I’ll focus
on a second thing and so on and so forth. Basically,
it’s manageable, so when asked if we were feeling
overwhelmed, I didn’t raise my hand. But about 90%
of the classroom (my classmates) did. And so the
professor told us to get our syllabuses (syllabi?), pull
out the questions for our paper regarding personal
managerial strengths and areas of concern and “discuss
each question in our lesson plan groups.” What
we did was: talk to our group about each question,
discuss the questions, one by one, as a class, and
then review how to do in-text and bibliographical citations.
And after spending 15 to 20 minutes on this,
our professor said “OK, everyone gets 20 points (full
marks) on the paper. So basically, he gave us all A’s
on our paper without making us actually write the
paper. His exact words to us were “it’s more impor tant
to me that you know the material, not the writing
portion. All I ask is that you use this time that you
have saved from not having to do the paper, wisely.
Use it on your other classes, don’t just use it to watch
Netflix.” And that’s exactly what I did. Because, origi nally,
I was going to be spending a few days on my
paper and then going into working on my field experience
observation prompt forms. And now, I didn’t
have to do that! Since my professor had taken care
of the paper issue, I could start my field experience
form assignment earlier than planned which means
I have already finished with it and can spend this
week—Thanksgiving week—with my cousins and
uncle who have come over to visit us from London.
I’m not completely sure yet, because I am writing this
column eight days before you read it, but I may have
one assignment to do. In our class we are making
lesson plans—as I mentioned at the beginning of this
column—and, though I did turn in our first draft, our
professor warned us that he would go through it with
a “fine-tooth-comb” so I am expecting that I will have
to make corrections. Fortunately, I am working on this
lesson plan with a partner, so we agreed that she will
do half of the corrections and I will do half of the corrections.
And furthermore, I fully intend to enjoy my
time with my family in the daytime and do my work in
the evening and nighttime when we are just hanging
out at home.
But why did I go on this huge spiel? Because I really
appreciate how my professor recognized the
overwhelming feeling my classmates were getting
and worked with us to lessen that feeling, even if only
slightly. Oftentimes I feel that professors forget that
we have lives outside of school and that we all have
something or the other—work, family, other responsibilities—
to deal with. And they pile us on with work,
with assignment after assignment, that we barely
have time to breathe. We just go from one thing to
the other and our lives just become all about school.
Now, I’m studying to be a teacher, so it shouldn’t sur prise
any of you that I find education to be extremely
important. But I also find life important. I find it important
to live your life and enjoy your life and that
just isn’t possible if you have your head in the books
all the time. People need to have the time to see the
world for all it is. People need to be able to experience
the world’s beauty and enjoy the smaller things
in life. People need to be able to spend time with their
family and friends and people need to be able to create
and develop new relationships. People need to
be able to enjoy their hobbies, learn and develop new
skills and people need to be able to take some time to
themselves, to reflect on everything going on in their
lives and to take care of themselves. And none of this
is possible if you are constantly working—be it in a
school sense or during a job.
And that’s why I wish that it was mandatory to give
four weeks off a year. So, I’m studying to be a teach er,
which means that I technically will get school holidays.
But, after talking to other teachers and doing
my own research, I know that the time I spend off
of school will be spent on training, preparing for the
class after the holidays and possibly working another
job (because we all know teachers don’t get paid
enough, but don’t get me started on that because I
could rant for ages). So I wouldn’t be teaching but it
wouldn’t be a complete holiday. And that—a complete
holiday—is exactly what I think should be a require ment
the world over. Everyone needs some time to
just take a break, concentrate on themselves and focus
on who/what they want to focus on.
So that’s it for tidbits. A bit of a random one, I know,
but I am freezing over here. Literally, I can’t stop
shaking, it’s SO COLD. It’s funny, I was JUST saying
last week how I wish it was colder so I could wear my
cute winter outfits. Well, my wish came true and I’m
wearing my cute outfits, but after two days of this cold
weather I am DONE. I heard it’s supposed to warm
up soon, so hopefully that happens because I can’t
deal with the cold. And that’s is the cause of this
slightly random tidbits column, that—mind you—still
has a deeper and more significant meaning behind it.
And I hope you all had an amazing Thanksgiving!
Photo Credit: Star Racing, Quote Master
