My friend told me about an incident at her part time job. I teach part time at the same college, and so I felt compelled to chime in.

Another part time instructor had scheduled a library instruction session. He got sick and decided to send his class to the library without him, even though he wasn’t going to make it in. I can understand the reasoning behind this thinking…library instruction sessions are supposed to be scheduled two weeks in advance. It could potentially screw up the entire schedule to have to push a session back two weeks.

Apparently, the library in question didn’t see a problem with it, because they went ahead with the session. My friend, as the on-duty librarian, taught the class.

She ended up in a situation with a belligerent student calling her a c**t and walking out. Here’s the comment I gave her:

I think that probably several assumptions were made in this situation…

1. The library assumed that they were dealing with adults, not children.

2. The library assumed that the instructor had done his job up to this point.

3. The library assumed that the instructor had already given his students guidelines for the assignment.

Apparently, those assumptions were wrong. 😛

I admit, when I first heard about this situation (without knowing it was you, and without knowing the details), I wondered what the big deal was. I’ve never done this before, but I’m fairly confident that I *could* have sent a class to the library without me, without incident. I would have explained the assignment to the students beforehand. I would have made sure that the librarian in charge had excruciatingly explicit details about the assignment. I would have made sure that the students knew that any questions about the assignment would have to be saved for ME.

At any rate, no one should have been expecting you to play substitute teacher (or babysitter, as the case may be…).

Clearly, this guy doesn’t have control over his class…and if he’s really missed that many classes, he has no business teaching. That’s ridiculous. He seems to be leaving a lot of people to pick up after him, which is uncalled for. No wonder his students don’t know how to behave themselves…

I’m a little bit shocked about a couple of things…first, that this guy has really missed several classes. We’re not even halfway through the semester. I’ve felt guilty canceling A class on those rare few occasions when I had to.

Second…well, I’m shocked that college students can’t be expected to behave themselves for an hour-long library session without their instructor present.

Well, these past couple of weeks have been pretty crazy…school is going well. I have one class that is sure to drive me insane before my time is up, but I guess that’s always the way!

The school has switched from a “regular” schedule to a rotating block schedule this year. That means I don’t see my students every day–I see them three days out of a four-day cycle. Because of the way my planning periods fall, every first and fourth day of the cycle, I teach straight through the day with my only break being lunch. Ouch!

I like my co-teacher a great deal, and having her there to plan with is a huge help to me.

This past weekend was pretty hard…as I mentioned, Rand and I went to Cleveland for a funeral. We got into town late Friday night, and so we got up early to go to the funeral home before the service. Of course, that meant we ended up in the funeral procession, which was odd…but worthwhile, because I felt it was important to see Jen before the service.

The service itself was lovely, and fitting. The song “On Eagle’s Wings” chokes me up a little on a good day,  and even though I had braced myself for it (really, have you ever been to a Catholic funeral where it wasn’t played?) it still hit me pretty hard. There was such an incredible outpouring of love and support from both friends and family…Shar was loved by a lot of people.

Just a reminder–the breast cancer walk is this coming weekend. Here’s the page for donations.

And of course, I can’t help but at least note today’s date. We shared a moment of silence in school this morning. My heart goes out to anyone who lost a loved one on September 11, 2001, and to anyone who still has loved ones fighting overseas. That’s all I’m going to say about that…

Ok, I have to run…I’ll post again when I can.