Worse

I have whined about my lousy schedule. I just found out that it is even worse. Here's whine.

At the end of my last class meeting today, the first day of classes, a student asked about the nature of a Monday/Wednesday class, indicating that I was teaching one. I answered his question then said, "This is a Monday/Wednesday class?"

It is.

I groaned. Now my day lasts thirty minutes longer. But, most terribly, my two sections of the course will not match up well. I can usually end each section on the same material and give the quizzes on the same day in each section. Not anymore.

So now, in my MWF class I will end up saying on a Friday, "We have finished the chapter. But I can't open the web quiz today because we have not finished the material in the MW section. So I will open the quiz on Monday, and will close it a week from today." People will come to me and say, "I did not find the quiz online," and I will have to continually explain that it opens on Monday. People will say, "I could have taken the quiz on Friday, but I missed it since it was on Monday, so can I take it over?"

This will open a thousand cans of worms. Issues will crop up at every turn in some ways that I can foresee and in many ways that I cannot. The class day is like a machine. When the parts work together, everything can go right if I take care. But when the parts do not work together, lots of bad stuff happens.

Yeah, there are plenty of people that have it worse--99% of the world has it worse. But even my Iraqi veteran students have their gripes when the little things go wrong.

So, there.