Word After Word

I just finished reading my teaching evaluations. This semester I got an A.  Maybe even an A+! Not all my students will agree I’m sure! But overall I am really, really happy with my evaluations. Of course the praise makes my heart sing. And the suggestions are good ones. Teaching is so very much like writing, I can always see ways to do it better next go round. I think that is the creative and energizing aspect of this work, that it can be shaped and improved and done well in an astonishing array of ways.  I want to go out and celebrate but I’m here in my office on Friday night trying to something like Salvage The Day.

I keep straigthening my office. I’m still labelling. Live to label. I miss the students. I miss getting ready for class. It’s this awkward in between time. I always hated summer vacation for this reason: I like school.

I think a lot of the mindless straightening–I come in here for hours and I don’t really know exactly what I am accomplishing–has to do with getting used to a kind of Emptiness.  The campus is so quiet. The halls are dark, dark because of the new energy saving motion sensing devices. No motion, no light.

So I’m here. Waving my arms every once in awhile. Clearing away a fantastic fulfilling semester, finishing a draft of a huge writing project, ending this, ending that. Finishing the pirate book. Finishing the chicken curry wow was it good. Putting away the coats and my collection of vintage sweaters.

Ready to begin the next good beginnings.

Related posts:

1. The Balance of Teaching
2. What’s Your Favorite Thing About Teaching?
3. High Water Mark in Teaching Career: Staying After
4. Two Teaching Things
5. Teaching Joy: “The first class where I filled up a whole notebook!”