Apologia

Apologies for the lack of posts recently. I have been teaching my class on Fascism and National Socialism, as well as doing final stage revisions to my doctoral dissertation.

The class is going wonderfully, and although I have had problems with remembering all of my hundred or so students names, I think that I have made good connections with most of them. Of course, during the first few weeks of a subject, we are in a honeymoon period, but now they have handed in their first essays, the unfortunate reminder of hierarchy (assessment and grading) rears its ugly head.

It is something that I will eventually get used to, I am sure, but there is a strange feeling when, after five weeks of getting to know the students and forming friendly and casual relationships with them, I am required to critically assess their work. I try, when marking, to avoid looking too closely at the author of the paper, and once I have marked it, I don't let it affect the way I treat the student, either in class or private consultation. But while I can control my end of the relationship, I am sometimes afraid that a student that previously liked me may begin to resent or hate me because of their mark or comments I made on their essay.

Oh well--at the end of the day, I am paid to be their teacher and not their friend, and although a friendly relationship withmy students is preferable, if they end of hating me, I guess I have to live with it.