September has to be the busiest month of the year. New courses, committee meetings, student organizations, campus events, research, writing, conference prep. What did I leave out? For college faculty, the demands of the fall semester seem to pile up. Even the most dedicated teachers face the temptation to reduce course prep time in the service of accomplishing other tasks. “The Progressive Era? I could teach that in my sleep!”

But I want to share something I have learned in my first five years as a college professor: There is absolutely no substitute for disciplined course preparation. On several occasions, I gave in to other demands and taught class with very little specific preparation for that day. Talk about regret! Professors learn to differentiate between the great classes and the just-average ones. Great classes rarely happen without serious prep work uniquely designed for that class meeting. In my judgment, there are several compelling reasons that professors should dedicate specific prep time just as we do for research and writing:

1) Each group of students is unique and requires different preparation.

2) You can’t promote active learning on the fly.

3) New scholarship constantly changes how we understand concepts in US history, sometimes on a day-by-day basis.

4) Navigating the big issues (race, gender, class, sex, religion, immigration, etc.) is not easy. It requires extensive planning and constant adaptation.

5) Most importantly: If course prep is the first thing to go, the implication is that teaching is the least important thing we do. In fact, it’s the most important.

How do you carve out specific time to prepare for each class meeting?