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I’m not sure where you’re at in the semester, but here we’re rolling into exams tomorrow and I’m feeling some kind of way about what I have and haven’t been able to influence and accomplish re: classroom practice and online learning right now. Uh oh, feels like a thread.
This here is my last gasping push to encourage you to scrap that timed, synchronous final exam and do literally anything else.
I get that rethinking assessment is, like, a lot right now. Talk to any editor I’m supposed to be working with at the moment: I also am not my most creative self right now. Even just letting students choose their best moment from a large open window is kinder and more generous.
But also... could that final assessment be optional? Could students who are fine with where they’ve landed in your course be free to focus on other things right now?
How much bandwidth do you have for marking right now? I definitely cried fixing a Moodle quiz last week; I couldn’t mark one to save my life. What if the grace you’re extending to students isn’t just grace for them, but grace for yourself?
The thing I think most academics are resisting is the reality that we, too, are going to get very sick. Lots of us. We can’t brain our way out of this. When I ask you to let up on your students, it’s in small part because I know you can’t hear me suggest you let up on yourself.
I hope you’ll think about dropping your final assessment, making it optional, or inviting some kind of reflective practice instead. It’s the right thing to do for students right now.
But I also hope you’ll say no to that virtual conference, accept that your manuscript is on pause, and acknowledge that you, too, have a body that is tired and needs rest. That you too are mortal. That you will soon grieve, if you haven’t yet. That you deserve grace.
Friends, it’s a fucking pandemic. You don’t have to be productive right now. If you aren’t a frontline worker or a relevant researcher (for whom my gratitude is insufficient), whatever you’re doing can wait until the system can sustain us all again.
Anyway. The thing you can probably really impact right this second is the stress levels of your students. In the grand scheme of things, the choices you make to lessen their load and extend generosity will be what they remember about this shitstorm of a semester.
And so help me, if I find out you’re asking for doctor’s notes right now, I will be livid pissed (a phrase I learned in New Brunswick and will love forever).
