all days should begin with cherry pie

I can tell today's going to be a good day. I feel fairly normal, which in my case means I'm already telling myself, "No, you may not have another piece of cherry pie for breakfast!"

And yes, I did just write "another." And yes, according to the clock on my laptop it is indeed 8:18 am, on this slightly overcast day in May--the last of the month, which means I've made it through not just another month, but another semester, with probably no more disasters than usual. Maybe even fewer, given all my systems for double-checking and redundancy.

And I managed despite the idiotically lenient and multiform list of opportunities and due dates I gave my students this semester: "Choose which of the papers you want to do!" "Choose how much writing you're willing to put in for your grade!"

Ay yi yi. What a mistake.

I've tried such systems in the past, but you know what: I think on some level students may just want to be told what to do. There's such a thing as handing over too much responsibility. I think most students are more comfortable being told "take this many exams and write this many papers" and "take the exams on these exact dates" than in being given too many choices regarding their assignments. I can even tell them up front that if they need a little extra credit I'll give them an opportunity somewhere--I'll allow them either to rewrite something or to do a little extra work. But they like to know the what the basic requirements are and be reassured that they're exactly the same for everyone right up front.

I've come back to this tried-and-true formula so many times. And each time you know what happens? I go to some teacher-training institute which fills my head with grand schemes and I make changes I regret!

But that's one of the things I like absolutely best about academia: the cycle. Every semester, every year you get a chance to revisit what you've done.

And then if you choose you can set it up all differently for the next time.