After 40 years and a PhD, I am wondering if I am really cut out to be a teacher.

CC1 only about half my students stick around. More stick in classes that were on the schedule to start with. Perhaps one way to feel better about classes there is to not take last-minute additions.

CC2 all but two of my students finished, though maybe 1/8 failed too.

SLAC is regiving a test that someone didn’t show up for. Someone who has an F. The plus of giving the test is that the school has “proof” that she can’t do the work. (I think a semester of Fs is plenty proof of that.) So she is taking a test she won’t pass to make her feel better about the situation. She will still fail. She will feel better about the school, perhaps, and still angry at me. But I am not the reason she failed. She is.

But I am looking at the two schools I taught at this semester together (CC1 and SLAC) and wondering why I am teaching if so many students don’t do well. Maybe, after all, it isn’t the vocation for me.

Update:
My husband asked me tonight, “If you could go back to being a freshman in college and start over, what would you do?” I’m not sure I would do a lot differently, except try to get more publications and presentations. So maybe I’m just overreacting.