I have approximately three bajillion hours of grading to do.
I don't want to do it.
I've been able to avoid it thus far by prepping for a birthday party and now tidying up after it but really, it's sitting there. Mocking me. The kids have done all this work learning and I'm supposed to check and document all of it so I can tell them where they need to improve, but truth be known I'm terrible at grading in a timely fashion and given the set up of my program, (I see students one day a week) it's not as useful as it might be in a normal classroom. At least, this is what I tell myself when being mocked by my stacks of ungraded papers.
The current stack is mostly packets students did during "brain labs" where they got to learn about the different jobs of different parts of their brains. This year I get to teach a little bit about psychology, and how all the bits and pieces of the brain work together to create "the mind." I find it a fun and fascinating topic*, and would probably spend a lot more time on it if I could, but I like the previous unit for this year a lot, too, and the unit that comes after this one, and I never want to cut anything**. This is understandable, at least according to my personality type, which I get to find out yet again this year.
You see, each year I teach this, I have the kids take the Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory, which is a long list of somewhat awkwardly-worded Yes/No questions. It's hard for 10 and 11 year-olds to decipher so I go through it with them, reading each question aloud and translating as needed. Which means I typically take the thing four or five times in the space of a week.
I'm sure you're asking why I bother clicking Yes or No, and not just read the questions. Truth is, I don't know. I guess I just like answering questions about myself.
The weirdest part? My personality type changes, even over a couple days. If you've never taken this test, you can here and you'll get a little set of four letters, telling you if you're more introverted, or more of a judger or perceiver or whatever. Each letter comes with a little percentage, telling how much you are that particular type of trait. But as the week progresses, and I think more about the questions, my answers must change because usually by the end of the week at least one of the letters has changed and all of the percentages have moved quite a bit. I'm not sure what this means.
In general, though, I usually tend to be some kind of "ENFP" which is probably what that dog Doug was in the movie UP. I'm highly distractible, friendly, love to learn new things and have a tendency to chase squirrels***. I'm not a perfectionist, I can't be bothered with fiddly details and I have difficulty following the rules when I think the rules are getting in the way of things being done well, properly, efficiently or all three. This last trait does not endear me to administration, I'm sure, but what the hey. Nobody's perfect. I do try.
Speaking of, I should try to get some grading done. After doing a little more cleaning. Or watching Downton Abbey. Or....
*This is one of the coolest things about my job. I get to teach fun and interesting stuff all the time. I constantly get to research new topics and add cool new ideas to my curriculum. It is a charmed and wonderful thing.
**This is probably the worst part about my job† I really do hate cutting things out. It's all interesting. But stuff always falls out of the plans because I take too long to get through lessons. I'd like to think it's because I'm thorough, but really I think it's because I get sidetracked easily††
***not really
†besides grading. Grading is the worst part of any teaching job. Right now, writing in this blog is my way to avoid grading papers.
††as you might guess.
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