a.k.a. V.J.

For most Americans, the unofficial end of summer is Labor Day weekend. For me, it comes a week prior to that when the fall semester starts. The first day of classes is less than a month from this writing, which is my cue to slip into Course-Prep Mode.

It’s a bittersweet process. By this point in the summer, I’m usually looking forward to getting back into the classroom. At the same time, I’m never happy at the thought of summer ending. It’s pretty much the same feeling I used to get toward the end of summer vacation back in the K-12 days of my youth — the excitement of a new beginning versus the reluctance to let go of a carefree lifestyle.

This coming fall definitely represents a new beginning, and it will be anything but carefree. I’m teaching two courses, double my usual load. One of them is something I’ve never taught before, so I’ll really be hopping, and every week is likely to bring unforeseen challenges and curveballs. But really, that’s the fun part.

To me, the main benefit of teaching these past ten years is that it has kept me on my toes at a stage in my life when calcification is a very real hazard. I’m forced to look at old material with fresh eyes and to stay on top of new developments. Just communicating with young people on a consistent basis has been very good for me. Left to my own devices, I could quite easily slip into being the stereotypical old man yelling at clouds (or worse still, the smug fiftysomething who posts Facebook memes about how my generation is superior because we grew up playing flashlight tag instead of scrolling through a smartphone). Working with real-life young people has saved me from spinning my wheels in that sort of bitter generational dead end.

But before all the transformational Dead Poets Society classroom magic can happen, I need to put the finishing touch on syllabi, craft assignments, sift through test banks, and familiarize/re-familiarize myself with textbooks. That’s the work of late July and early August, and the stuff I need to get back to as soon as I finish this post.