...and I have a real bent for sarcasm. Not that you would notice. I have just finished checking my email, reorganising my files, rearranging my desktop, filing, sorting old committee paperwork, and checking my online resources for students. That's right, I also have a stack of marking to do, but I keep finding other things to do so that I can justifiably avoid it. There is nobody I know who got into teaching in order to be able to grade students' work. We know that adequate and timeous feedback is essential, and it forms a valid component of the teaching and learning process for both the students and teachers. We know that it is best if it is done by the instructor themselves in order to become equipped to teach the material better the next time around. But there are precious few people who enjoy grading tests, tutorials, exams or essays.
I could spend this precious time (which I should be spending grading papers) talking about all the things that I hate about grading, but I won't. Those things are fairly obvious. Instead, I want to reflect on the quote we hear so often: "Find the job you love and you'll never work a day in your life"
"As great as the quote from Confucius is, the sad truth is that doing what you love is the dream of many, but the reality of few." (Jorgen Sundberg, http://theundercoverrecruiter.com/find-job-you-love-and-youll-never-work-day-your-life/)
The truth is, I love my job. But I have to work many days, because the standing and teaching, the one-on-one tutoring, the encouraging and inspiring that I love, even the getting-the-hands-dirty in the trenches that I thoroughly enjoy, are only parts of the job I love, and the tedious committee work, marking papers, filing, grant proposals and editing loom large on a daily basis. Nonetheless, each time I get stuck into such things and do what must be done, I have the satisfaction of reaping a reward in terms of seeing the whole academic project within which I work move forward.
Every job has these little irritations (some quite big, actually) but if we look past the tedium, throw out the "waste of my time" attitude, we get to taste something of the whole enchilada.
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