The Swing of the Pendulum

I am teaching from home for the last month of the semester, which is somewhere around a moderately mitigated disaster. I am unwilling to force cameras (I ask nicely every now and then for the sake of my mental health) or penalize students for missing their names being called, meaning a lot of my classes are extended monologues where I sink slowly down into an existential funk, which is similar to normal classes except in person I can actually make students talk a little more. It’s also a rich get richer scenario because the more engaged the students are the more lively I am which feeds itself whereas some classes are an ouroboros of enervation. The best thing I could be doing is getting them to write more, but after spending all day looking at screens, adding more to that in the form of digital homework on their part and grading on my part seems sadistic.