Just three more weeks

Just three more weeks - sounds like a long time, probably isn't as long as I need.

I've spent all summer thinking that I'd have all the time in the world to work on revising my class. I need to do a bit of work on my class. Last year I taught the class meeting one night per week. This year, I'm meeting two days a week - so I need rethink how to arrange my readings and class activities to split them.

One fun thing - we have a couple of speakers coming to campus this fall who fit my topic. SO - I get to replace a couple of class sessions with having the students attend the speaker instead.

I'm still struggling with the first big paper they have to write. The paper topic I've used the past 2 semesters just doesn't work. It didn't work the first semester but I couldn't figure out what else to have them write about.

If anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them.

The way my course is set up, we look at the cultures of business, politics and religion. We look at the barriers to change each organization faces and how understanding the culture helps overcoming these barriers when attempting to implement change in the organization.

For my business paper, I've had the students look at their opinion on employee theft - what constitutes theft, how do you punish, how do you prevent theft without creating an environment of suspicion.

What I discovered is that most freshmen still have a very absolute way of viewing the world. It's very black and white for them.

I've thought about using the Eron case to have them write a paper, but I'm having a hard time constructing a two sided question that is researchable.

I can always fall back on the one paper, but I think I'll have to restructure the class so it's not the first paper they write - they need something to instill confidence - not insecurity.

Any ideas from the peanut gallery welcome.

Oh yes, in three weeks by oldest child becomes a first grader and my second child a preschooler - it's going too fast.