I Teach
This blog is a place for me to debrief myself after my classes. It will serve both as a place for venting and as an archive for what worked and didn't work for me. I welcome outsider comments about teaching techniques or anything else.Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Arrrgh
So today was my first flop of a class. I really just get everything done that I want to get done in like 45 minutes. I feel somewhat unprofessional just letting them go with 30 minutes still left, so I tried to cram something in at the end which really just took away from what (little) we had accomplished in the beginning. Maybe (probably) I'm being too hard on myself, but I know it wasn't as good as my other classes this semester. The positive though is that I managed to get a pretty good discussion going surrounding relative inequality and absolute inequality and which is worse. I managed to be pretty non-judgemental, even when the kid in the back said that inequality is a good thing. I think it's a good thing that it was an environment where he felt comfortable saying something so ridiculous insane contrary to the rest of the class. I take this to indicate that the students feel like they can express their opinions and speak their minds. That’s a good thing. I also really liked how I got them all to talk to each other a little bit. I’m proud of that. I really think it will be important as we go on this semester. I’m a little disappointed, however, that I’m not using the readings as much as I think I should be. I need to specifically pull stuff straight out of there so it lends some importance to the assignments. I don’t want them to think that they can get by without doing the readings, because then class discussion will suck. Good stuff. Useful stuff. Movie on Thursday followed by a brief discussion. That shouldn’t be too terribly difficult. I’m sure I’ll be able to sleep at least 3 hours the night before. It’s really surprising to me how nervous I got before my first class (physically ill to the point of canceling class), and how nervous I still get before each class.
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