And the fat lady sings…
December 18th, 2003 § 0 comments
The semester is now declared over. I gave my last final tonight. I planned it very carefully, with only two short answer questions and the rest multiple choice. There was no way I could stand to be in that room with them any longer than an hour... the last hour... the last sixty minutes from the end of this neverending semester.
After the exam, many of them came up to me and said they'd enjoyed taking the class. They validated that I actually was a good professor instead of just playing one on TV. A lot of them have signed up for my classes next semester, despite the fact that they're the more difficult writing courses. They left smiling, happy, and content, not for the same reasons as I had been when I typed up the exam (relishing the thought of my brief but lovely holiday respite). I had waited for weeks for this evening to come and go, to be the beginning of my recharging period and to regain some idea of why I keep teaching. Instead, it was those happy, content students who taught me that very lesson this evening.