Teacher’s experience a special season. It occurs twice a year, once prior to the Christmas holiday and once in the spring. This is the Extra Credit Season. It is that magical time of year when students suddenly realize that skipping class on a regular basis and not doing homework inevitably leads to a failing a grade and in an act of desperation start begging for extra credit. The cute thing about this experience is that EACH of them thinks that they are the ONLY one asking for extra credit and as a teacher I should make an exception JUST FOR THEM.

Teaching is a strange profession. Students don’t view you as human but as a masochistic, boring person who has a strange obsession with your subject matter and a desire to fail them at all costs. The odd part of this is that nothing could be farther from the truth. Well, I actually do have a strange obsession with my subject matter. I really DO enjoy reading Paradise Lost and I DO cry every time I read Othello. I am not masochistic and I am not boring. (oh please, please tell me I’m not boring). Okay, maybe I’m just not masochistic — and I definitely don’t want to fail them.

Every semester this season starts the same for me. I’m understanding, I’m accomodating and then by the third or fourth request I’m angry, I’m resentful and by the end of the semester I’m asking myself “why do I teach?” And just when all hope seems lost to me it happens, and it usually goes something like this: “Ms. Morley, I just want you to know that I loved your class and I’ve learned so much in here that I’m going to name my first child after you”. Okay, I made up the part about the first child, but the rest of it is true. And then I start thinking, “Next semester I’m going to do better. Next semester I’ll reach more kids”. That is how Extra Credit Season comes to a close.