Sometimes I, I feel like a fist (Porcupine Tree)

 

It's our term 2 study-break/holiday.

Marking and holidays are a dodgy combo for teachers. While others prefer to delay their marking, my general time management philosophy centres on the touch-it-once idea.

Which means I can only start feeling like I'm on holiday when the marking is done. Given I had marking for all five-year levels/classes, that meant the first few days were devoted to clearing the decks.

Luckily Jacky had work in the midst of this, so I had a day to mark my Year 13 writing folios.

All the marking is now done - so I can enjoy the break with just prep for the start of the term to come.

Having re-read all that - it sounds more pompous and sanctimonious than I wanted it to. Yay for me!

I do stand by that touch-it-only-once idea though, so let's cling to that shall we.

Cold as ice cream but still as sweet (Blondie)

Life is starting to settle into some semblance of order with work days and weekends forming patterns. For so long we have had to snatch glimpses of normalcy and routines had no chance.

It's been an old school Sunday today. I've been doing marking and preparation for the coming week pretty much all day.

With a twist.

I've physically only marked two scrips with a pen - the rest have all been assignments delivered into a dropbox on my school schoology account. I've checked the various essays and 'written' comments on the work digitally. Apart from a couple of DOH! moments where I failed to save my comments it's been smooth sailing.

The reading and commenting on a screen has taken some adjustment. I'm from a generation that is mostly comfortable editing stuff in hard copy.

The other neat element of today was conversing with my students as I marked their work. Little messages and updates kept popping up all day long as they responded to my notices and assessments and their essays.

Cool - marking didn't seem such a chore and I got to listen to some Miles Davis, Ten Years After, Stan Getz, The Exponents and others.