Jerry Seinfeld

"I always did well on essay tests. Just put everything you know on there, maybe you'll hit it. And then you get the paper back from the teacher and she's written just one word across the top of the page, 'vague.' I thought 'vague' was kind of vague. I'd write underneath it 'unclear,' and send it back. She'd return it to me, 'ambiguous.' I'd send it back to her, 'cloudy.' We're still corresponding to this day... 'hazy'...'muddy'..."

In the last nineteen months, I've experienced some major life changes; in fact, I'm on my second job since the last post. After returning to my alma mater to teach seventh-grade Latin, I stayed at TCA but moved up a year to teach eighth-grade History/English. 

Though I have absolutely loved both jobs, I have come across what is perhaps my least favorite part of working. Let me preface this with the fact that I am a teacher through-and-through. I literally spend hours preparing for lessons, mastering content and creatively developing and implementing strategies to foster student learning. I live for the joy of teaching, of engaging students, of witnessing genuine learning, of seeing students understand the processes of school. Graduate classes inspire me, additional reading challenges me, and teaching itself invigorates me. I simply love my profession.

Preface complete. However, I have found one aspect of teaching that doesn't seem to inspire or invigorate me in the same way: grading. Plainly put, it is hard. Reading essays, test responses, narratives, quiz questions, even daily work exhausts my mind--my whole being. Grading is decision after decision, evaluating whether or not students have answered the question correctly and fully, ranking their work on a scale of one-to-six, across six different traits of writing. Decisions in grading seem endless. I find myself constantly questioning myself: did I evaluate accurately? fairly? completely? effectively? Unfortunately, I don't yet have answers, other than I am doing the best that I know how.

The Monday after I finished grading my students' descriptive narrative writing assignments (on which I spent fifteen-plus hours), I returned to school, accomplished and smiling. Handing back the papers to students lifted caused me to feel like a huge burden had been lifted. On that day, I read this quote, which one of my colleagues dropped off for me. Perfect timing. What a lovely reminder for this recovering perfectionist that not everything has to be taken quite so seriously.