Welcome back to Saint Marty World. I hope you're enjoying your day. While the weather is cold (38 degrees the last time I checked), it's still Sunday. No work. Time with family. Dinner at my parents' house. Yes, I'm facing the back-to-work blues tonight, but, at the moment, I'm totally living in denial.
It is Classic Saint Marty Sunday. I've chosen a post from the first season of Saint Marty. This episode originally aired on March 10, 2010. It was near the end of the winter semester at the university. I was a little overwhelmed. I'm sure anybody who's taught composition will sympathize.
The initial posting received over two hundred views.
Saint Marty hopes you enjoy it. Try the Saint Joan of Arc French fries at Saint Marty Castle on your way out of the park..
First, let me apologize for not posting for the last couple of days.
My entry today will partly explain my absence. The other part of my
explanation was that Blog.com was down for maintenance until 7 p.m.
yesterday, so I couldn't type in what I had. Please note and accept my mea culpa. Now, on with the show....
Any
English teacher who tells you he or she enjoys correcting student
papers/poems/stories is lying. I've been in the business for nearly 20
years, and I can tell you in all honesty that I would rather have an
enema than comment on student writing (at least it's quicker and the
sense of violation only lingers a short while). At this time in the
semester, I'm pretty much a grading machine. It seems right now like I'm
lugging around 50 pounds of essays about dead grandmothers and/or first
sexual experiences. (They're not good sex stories, either. These
are college freshmen and sophomores we're talking about. It's over in
about 30 seconds, which is more than I can say for the papers.) By the
end of a day of grading, I feel like I've just sat through a weekend
marathon of Dora the Explorer. (Can you say it with me? Sick
grandma, phone call, funeral! Sick grandma, phone call, funeral!! Sick
grandma, phone call, funeraaaaaal!!! Excelente!)
If
it sounds like I'm whining, it's because I am. I know me complaining
about having to grade papers is like a urologist complaining about the
smell of pee. It just comes with the territory. And don't misunderstand
me: I love teaching. It's the evaluating that I'm not a big fan of.
Every
once in a while, I get a student whose work is so good it hurts.
Literally. When I read good writing, whether it's from an 18-year-old
from Felch, Michigan, or William Faulkner, I experience pangs of envy
that pound in my temples. I've already admitted in an earlier blog that
one of my many character flaws is jealousy, so this confession should
come as no shock. I can't stand reading writers who are better than me.
(It doesn't happen very often, but it happens.) When that writer is one
of my students, it's both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that I
get to read amazing work (and make biting comments that will shake the
writer's confidence a little); the curse is that everything else
submitted by other students in the class reads like bad J. D. Salinger
knockoffs--all moron, nothing that makes you want to call up the author
when you're done.
This semester, I have a few really
good students who will end up getting A's in my classes, but I don't
have any student who humbles me as a teacher and writer, who I simply
can't make any better. Thus, at the moment, sitting down with a stack of
25 papers is like hunting with a shotgun: sometimes an essay is a
direct hit, but, most of the time, essays are scattered randomly from
good to mediocre to lousy. Pretty jaded, I know.
I am
sorely in need of a summer recharge. This always happens around this
time in the winter term. Right after spring recess, I lose my compass
point, to borrow a bad metaphor from Mr. Holland's Opus. I start
questioning my abilities as a teacher because every day I face a
classroom full of people who are suffering from the same malaise (call
it I-don't-give-a-shit-itis). I don't usually teach in the summer
sessions, so I get a break to restore my enthusiasm.
The
bad thing about this condition is that when I read about a saint now,
it makes me feel even more apathetic and lazy because most saints do
things like stop famines, cure cancers, build schools and basilicas. I'm
just happy if I remember to floss and wear matching socks. Marcarius is
a good example. A fourth century bishop, he helped write the Creed at
the Council of Nicaea (you know, the prayer that sort of tells all
Christians what to believe). He found the actual cross Christ was
crucified on in Jerusalem, and then built the Church of the Holy
Sepulcher. He also did things like battle heresies and convert
hundreds/thousands of people. Like I said, sometimes saints (who all
have type-A personalities) just make me tired.
I'm sorry this blog isn't more inspiring or wise. You're probably thinking, I waited two days for this?!
It's hard to find inspiration when you're buried in papers. I can't
even see my way to a witty, smart ass conclusion to this reflection. If I
were grading this posting, I'd probably give it about a B-.
Grammatically, there's nothing wrong with it, but it's narrative voice
is superficial and a little annoying. I don't even like me, which is
never a good sign.
So, I turn back to my dead grandma essays and pick up my red pen. Time to share my suffering.
Confessions of Saint Marty
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