I Will Always Have Teaching

Still thinking about education, it's funny; when I was a kid, I didn't care about grades. I didn't put in any effort to raise or maintain grades. I didn't even pay attention to what they were. There are a couple of factoids I retained from my middle school years, and they're not anything to be proud of.

Now, back in college since 1995, I started out getting good grades. I took classes that interested me, and I had little trouble getting As in them. 

Then I started taking general ed classes, with a goal of eventually getting a degree. These classes started to challenge me. Political Science, Economics: these took real effort to succeed in. But once I did, and then I got back into taking classes I liked (I had decided to major in music by then), I once again had an easy time maintaining my grades; Music Fundamentals was very enlightening and enthralling. The other music classes didn't feel like as much of a challenge as some of the gen ed classes because music is one area where I liked to push and challenge myself already, so it was a continuation of that, not a new challenge.

Anyway, by the time I was finishing my music classes and diving into the remaining GE classes, I had developed a taste for a 4.0 GPA. I was hell-bent on graduating with it. At the time of this writing I am in the 'home stretch' of my last set of classes to graduate with a Music for Transfer Associate in Arts degree. I currently have over 100% in two of my three classes, and the other one is a mystery, because the professor is very behind in grading. At the moment it shows me at an A, but a mid-A, like 94%. I took the advice of the teacher and changed how I was doing my discussion posts, and the more recent grades (after the ones that brought my grade down to where it is) have been better, so I am hopeful that I will be able to keep it above 90%. I think it helps that most of my classmates appear to be struggling with the material a bit, which makes me look better by comparison; I did notice that the teacher started pushing back due dates (including assignments I had already completed) and removing certain assignment requirements. At first I think he thought I was a sort of uppity, Karen-ish irritant, but now I feel he's starting to see me as one of the only ones with a clue. We had an assignment about a certain type of argument - I don't recall what it's called, but it's a three-part thing with two premises and a conclusion that should all work together - and, based on what I read, I was literally the only person who understood the concept and the assignment, and I used my replies to suggest ways they could alter their posts to fit the criteria. Yes, it can be seen as a little douchey, but to the teacher it shows that I got the assignment, and that I knew how to fix other people's flawed attempts; being douchey shouldn't bother him anyway, because he definitely identifies with that type of behavior.

So, I'm confident that I can finish with an A in two of my three classes, which end in about 3 weeks, and for the last one, I can only hope that my adjustments to my writing style have been what he had in mind and that I can get full credit for those assignments. There's another thing that has me nervous, and that's these quizzes he gave that are eleven questions: ten are multiple choice, and we get the results immediately, and they're worth 10 points altogether, then there's an eleventh question which is an essay answer, and that alone is worth 10 points, and is NOT graded right away because he needs to read it. So half of the grade on at least two of my quizzes is still an unknown. 

I've already been told by Cal State Fullerton that I'm not a good enough guitar player to join their music program, and I've been notified by Cal State Long Beach that I did not complete my application process, so my application has been withdrawn. I was notified that CSUF will accept me on my backup major of Art (which is funny, because I have zero graphic arts classes), but I'm going to skip on that; if I'm not going to get what I need out of them, they're not going to get my money out of me. Having taught music professionally for the past year, I'm convinced that it is something I would like to continue doing, and could see that being my profession for the remainder of my working life. I would happily accept other opportunities in music, such as recording, performing, composing, etc., but I will always have teaching. 

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