I question if Trader Joe’s has Charmin…. Alas, if you suffered from menopausal memory loss, you’d appreciate the value of a seating chart.
You incorrectly assume that I assigned the seats. Students have the choice of sitting where they feel safest—away from the windows, nearest the door, closest to slow-moving peers, etc.
I am starting to realize that you are more sassy than many of my students, Ms. Watson. Still, I understand that the midlife brain fog must make you feel as if you are living through your own private apocalypse, so I sympathize, and all is forgiven.
Due the stress of impending doom and vicarious trauma, I use a seating chart so that I can track who is still alive and attending class without having to verbally review the roll sheet. This saves me from remembering and holding onto names and also frees me from the terrible silence which ensues when a student has succumbed to the virus and is no longer…with us. I can merely look to see which seats are occupied … or not. I make a note to remove the extra furniture at the end of the day, like a cruel game of musical chairs without music, so that the vacant desks do not serve as reminders of our brief mortality. I think of the empty seats as distractions like a missing tooth. Something vital is gone that should be there.
In a rarely used staff bathroom where I go to cry, I have written the names of my “former” students on the wall of a stall using a Sharpie. It seems a pitiful tribute, but somehow apropos.
You seem like a caring, compassionate teacher, Ms. Watson.
Still...seating charts?
To quote from Professor Zifferblatt's seminal text, THE HARKNESS TABLE AS SOCIETAL MICROCOSM (trans. by Ziegler, et al, U. Chicago Press), "Assigned seats, no matter how benign in intent, are but a gateway drug leading inevitably toward the fully-realized totalitarian state. Today's seating chart is tomorrow's standing in line for three hours to procure a single roll of toilet tissue with a texture reminiscent of sandpaper" (p. 67).
Forgive me, Ms. Watson, but I'll stick to scavenging for Charmin at my local Trader Joe's.
I question if Trader Joe’s has Charmin…. Alas, if you suffered from menopausal memory loss, you’d appreciate the value of a seating chart.
You incorrectly assume that I assigned the seats. Students have the choice of sitting where they feel safest—away from the windows, nearest the door, closest to slow-moving peers, etc.
I am starting to realize that you are more sassy than many of my students, Ms. Watson. Still, I understand that the midlife brain fog must make you feel as if you are living through your own private apocalypse, so I sympathize, and all is forgiven.
Due the stress of impending doom and vicarious trauma, I use a seating chart so that I can track who is still alive and attending class without having to verbally review the roll sheet. This saves me from remembering and holding onto names and also frees me from the terrible silence which ensues when a student has succumbed to the virus and is no longer…with us. I can merely look to see which seats are occupied … or not. I make a note to remove the extra furniture at the end of the day, like a cruel game of musical chairs without music, so that the vacant desks do not serve as reminders of our brief mortality. I think of the empty seats as distractions like a missing tooth. Something vital is gone that should be there.
In a rarely used staff bathroom where I go to cry, I have written the names of my “former” students on the wall of a stall using a Sharpie. It seems a pitiful tribute, but somehow apropos.
You seem like a caring, compassionate teacher, Ms. Watson.
Still...seating charts?
To quote from Professor Zifferblatt's seminal text, THE HARKNESS TABLE AS SOCIETAL MICROCOSM (trans. by Ziegler, et al, U. Chicago Press), "Assigned seats, no matter how benign in intent, are but a gateway drug leading inevitably toward the fully-realized totalitarian state. Today's seating chart is tomorrow's standing in line for three hours to procure a single roll of toilet tissue with a texture reminiscent of sandpaper" (p. 67).
Forgive me, Ms. Watson, but I'll stick to scavenging for Charmin at my local Trader Joe's.