First week of discussion sections

This week is the first week of my TA sections. I taught three sections this afternoon, and I will have three more sections tomorrow morning. My first sections went well. My students usually like me when they meet me because I have generous section policies. I don't grade their attendance. I allow them to switch section times whenever they want. I encourage them to bring coffee and food, and I make sure they know that I am not offended when students get up to take restroom breaks.

The last policy comes from an experience I had in college. I spent most of college on a medication with nasty side effects -- and without going in to details, I had to take restroom breaks more frequently than most people.

One day, in my sophomore year, I got up in the middle of a lecture and left the room. The professor was one of my favorite professors, and I felt very awkward about getting up in front of everyone, but I didn't really have a choice. After class, my friend told me that while I was out of the room, the professor stopped class and spent several minutes ranting about how rude I was -- and how they should never, ever get up in the middle of lecture.

I was mortified, and after it happened, I spent many other classes not paying any attention because I was staring at my clock and agonizing over whether I could make it another 20 minutes. I promised myself that if I ever became an instructor of any kind, I would make sure my students knew it was okay to get up in my class.

This policy is rarely abused, especially because class is only 50 minutes -- and they are free to skip class entirely if they don't want to be there. But when someone does get up in the middle of my class, I am glad that they don't have to worry that I'm angry. A three-second distraction is not going to ruin my class.