Too Tired Tonight

I’m too tired tonight to reflect on my week as an instructor of mathematics. It was one of those weeks that was consumed by lesson planning, teaching, grading, office hours and meetings. What’s that you say? Why was this week any different than others? It wasn’t and somehow it was. I do all of those things, every week, but this week I tripped over the professional/personal life-balance line. I had a ‘mid-term’ to grade for a calculus class and two quizzes to grade for two pre-calculus classes. And a recommendation letter to write for a student. And meetings on topics of various importance. And lesson preparation for five days of classes. And homework to grade for all three classes. Not a lot of homework. Most of the homework I assign is on computer-assisted systems, but I feel it necessary to grade a few problems each week that are more challenging—some practical and some theoretical. They are on paper. They add up. They end up at home. They need to be sorted. They need to be graded. That can’t be done with too much distraction. Four problems each from 100 students. They take time to read and interpret (the problems, not the students—or maybe both). There is a spectrum of styles of written homework, in multiple dimensions: from obsessively neat to hopelessly tangled; from verbose and repetitive to sparse to the point of no-credit; from smudged pencil to calligraphy; from whatever to whatever. The results need entry into spreadsheets. And the spreadsheets need to be synchronized (light beams from the cloud touching here and there with varied filtering). And the averages need to be noted—too low or too high? And what about next time? Did the students learn? Did I learn? What should I change? Are the answers still mine or running free? But, enough is enough. I’m too tired tonight to reflect on my week as an instructor of mathematics.