There's Never Time to Do It Right, but ...

Monday night's last-minute class seemed to go well; however, yesterday's 2 classes were, uh, awful comes to mind. I thought I was prepared, but ...

Twice as many students came to the comp class than expected, so not only were there no materials for them, but no desks/chairs either. The classroom is set up to handle 25 and 32 students arrived for the class. The roster I was given had 17 students enrolled. It was cozy, but not really conducive to composition, for which each student needs a tabletop! They were supposed to do the college-wide norming essay, but that was out of the question, so we'll do it tomorrow. I'll take their writing samples to the scoring seminar Friday, along with the Frosh Comp samples.

Then, I dashed out of the room, dragging my cartful of materials, jumped into my trusty white pick-up, and headed for the base, where the reading class is held. In a computer lab. The tabletops are already occupied by computer monitors. When we read, we read together and discuss/complete assignments as we go along. Students seated in rows of bolted-to-the-floor furniture already occupied by computers aren't going to be able to do much peer work, are they. I'm not going to complain about the Spanish teacher, whose lecture was clearly a part of our class, too, or the fact that the only way to enter/exit her classroom is through mine. Yes, really. Each time a student left to smoke a cigarette, they trailed the smoke fumes through my room on their way back into their room. Nasty, nasty, nasty.

And, to just put that one perfect frosting rose on the cake -- I had the wrong edition of the book. I'm supposed to be provided with the appropriate materials, but I was not notified that there had been a book upgrade, so I prepared the syllabus based on the edition I do have. It not only has been replaced with colorful pictures, graphics, and artwork, but the pagination is completely changed. I pretty much came across as incompetent as the students fumbled to figure out what the heck I was talking about because NOTHING I presented matched their textbook.

Great day, huh? The good news is that the students were outstanding. They understood the totally crowded room, as well as the inappropriate setting in the computer lab for the other class. I apologized for the book mix-up and told them I will email a corrected syllabus no later than Friday. I also told both classes that I will investigate room changes -- but I should not have to even go there with any of this had I simply been informed about significant enrollment changes and required texts.

Oh, well. Suck it up and make it work: that's what I do so well -- and far too often.