Ah, Young Minds

So class today was a total bust. We were supposed to be workshopping Assignment Proposals for their 3rd paper. I don't know if it was a long weekend, or what, but no one was awake, no one was making comments, no one was doing much of anything involving brain activity. I made them all get up and switch seats to try and wake them up (and change the dynamics of the class) but that didn't do much of anything either.

So in the end I got a lot of unhelpful assignment proposals. We'll see what comes of this.

I think there's a bit of a tendancy (led by one ring-leader) to want to get babied in this class. I don't know if they think I'm just a softy, or what. But they're always asking for treats, which makes me not want to bring treats, of course, and today several people said "You should pick our topics for us, because that's the hardest part." I said that I though I would be doing a disservice because in future classes they'll have to pick their own topics, but they could always come to my office hours and brainstorm with me. Then I said I wanted them to be free to write about things that interested them. There's a few people that do that and have no problems. There's a few who hate picking their topics but end up picking really interesting ones, and there's a few who pick their own topics an just are completely out there. Where to find a happy medium. I think I need to encourage them more to take advantage of office hours more.

I know it was just a bad day (which happens to the best of us) but it was a little discouraging.

Then again, it's always fun to have the power to say "No" so it's not all bad. Most days I really enjoy the teaching.

Just today wasn't one of those days.