Adventures in Grading

Last December my school opted to change the school calendar. The decision was made to get out two days early for Christmas (yeah!). To make up for those two days, we would be losing the MLK and Presidents' Day holidays (booooo!). What that meant for me is that I would be going from January through the first week of April without any days off. That is a long time to go without a breather. If you have ever taught before, you know what I am talking about. If you haven't, you probably think that I am a wuss (which I am, but not for this reason).

Teachers whine about a lot of things (low pay, bad kids, worse parents, overwork, administration etc); I try to refrain from whining too much about my lot in life as I did choose this lot, and there are some significant perks (Spring break, Christmas break, Thanksgiving break, summer, good kids, better parents, lots of laughter, etc). That being said, I needed some time off. I was behind in my grading, the bad kids were getting to me more than the good kids were, my wife has been sick with a bad case of the twins, the gutters needed to be cleaned out, the bills needed to be paid, and I was about to snap. So I took Presidents' Day off. And I took the day after Presidents' Day off to make up for the King holiday.

I spent my two days off in grading papers.

I packed a bundle of papers, a stack of rubrics, a case of CD's, and a CD player and headphones into my forest green LL Bean Deluxe Bookpack (an old friend from my college days) and embarked on two days of intensive grading.

I have recently discovered that the best place for me to grade is at the local public library. It is quiet, clean, and there are few distractions (if you don't count the thousands of books). I have found that I can grade about one paper every fifteen minutes at the library but only about one every thirty minutes at home. In addition, I can't really take breaks at the library. Sure, I might get up and stretch, but if I wander too far from my station, things will start to disappear, and while I would be glad to have the papers taken, I don't need my vintage Magnavox personal CD-player stolen (people looked at me like I was playing eight tracks--lay off people, I would love an I-Pod, but for now I am going old-school).

On Monday, I spent time at three different libraries. The first was my library of choice. It is new, well lit, and has plenty of individual study carrels. The bathroom was out of order. With a row of as-yet-unread-by-me new Harry Potter books resting over my right shoulder (self-control 1, Satan-worshipping adolescent 0), I graded about eleven papers and headed to lunch at Einstein Bros.

After a lunch of two plain bagels toasted with butter (they somehow got my order wrong) and more than one refill of my Cherry Coke, I realized that it would be dangerous to go back to a library without a working restroom. I reluctantly headed to the next local library only to discover that there are only four individual study carrels and that I was apparently allergic to the facility. And I had left my CD player on during lunch and the drive over, resulting in the death of four AA batteries. I graded about half a dozen essays and left.

I headed to the only K-Mart open in my area. I had three purposes in this. One, now I needed some allergy medication. Two, I needed more batteries. Three, this is The K-Mart. My first K-Mart. The K-Mart from which my first ever Lego set was purchased. It was the most holy destination of many childhood toy pilgrimages. I still remember where the toys used to be laid out. I still remember what aisle the Lego was on. So I was going for old-times' sake. Sadly, K-Mart has fallen on hard times. The toys have moved. There were approximately three Lego sets on the shelves and they were all Bionocle (argh). I departed K-Mart with batteries and allergy medications and a cheap DVD of World War II Superman cartoons and headed for library number three.

The third library is the main branch for my county. It is large, well-laid out, and the daytime home of my town's homeless population. With Hawthorne on my left and Huxley on my right and homeless all around, I went to work. Despite the sleepiness induced by the allergy medication, it was a productive time. I graded all 21 of my junior Transcendentalism papers and had made a beginning into my freshmen Lord of the Flies/Jekyll and Hyde papers. By the end of day one, I had graded a total of twenty-six papers. This beat my previous record (15) by a wide margin. A good day and I only read parts of a few books including a book of strategies for dealing with bad teachers and old book by Dinesh D'Souza.

Day two started late as my son has school on Tuesday, and we only have one car. I went back to the first library of the previous day and was glad to see that the bathroom was now open. I found a cozy carrel and plugged in my CD player (I brought an adapter this time). I quickly finished off seven essays only to find that I had brought the adapter but left the rest of the ungraded essays at home.

I returned home, had a snack, and returned to the library just in time for the after school rush. Every table was taken up with teens and math tutors. I returned to my carrel and worked non-stop for the next three hours, trying not to hate myself for not becoming a math teacher. By the time I went home after seven o'clock, I had graded another twenty-one papers for a two-day total of forty-seven papers. Sure, I still have twenty-five more to grade, and after reading a couple of dozen freshmen insights into Ralph and Jack's characters, I am ready to kill Ralph myself--just give me a stick sharpened at both ends--forget it, this red pen will do, but a successful couple of days.

If you need me, I will be at the library.

btw--I was joking about Harry Potter. While it is true I have not yet read it, it is not because of any personally held beliefs about the morality of Rowling's universe.


Peace