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Optimizing

When I was a younger instructor I would assign work over Breaks such as Thanksgiving. Usually light and not due the day when the students returned but I didn't want them to go for too long without thinking about the class.

I'm not young anymore and I'm much more aware of the cracks in my students, the broken places. COVID really drove this home. Encouraging the students to rest as much as possible on Breaks, at least from class, seems to help them to be more resilient when they return, maybe even to perform better in class as the semester ends and final exams approach.

Part of me wonders if I'm just getting soft. There is some machismo at work among instructors on this topic, but of course it is a selfish machismo that passes the cost on to others.

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