According to Harold Bloom, Milton wrote with the anxiety of having come after Shakespeare. In the same vein, I'm teaching this college success course with a good deal of anxiety and uncertainty, esp. since I'm teaching it in the shadow of one of my colleagues, who's helping me out, has taught the course a long time, and is the guru.
This afternoon I was consulting with her about assignments and course content, and the old demons took over: "I can't possibly teach this course as well, there's no way, I'm not qualified," et al. Monkey mind. And I was stressing so much that I was barely aware of my desk, my clothes, my department mates. I haven't felt that wooged out from teaching in years, possibly not since my first semester as a full-time tenure-tracker 12 years ago.
But I got through both sections tonight, and it was fine. The biggest challenge will be figuring out how to effectively teach this stuff in two 50-minute sections per week I loathe 50-minute classes even more now than I used to, esp. since I'm used to 75, 105, and even more minutes per meeting. I can change my mind in 50, and that's about it.
Still, when I can burrow past the self-doubt and the stress of teaching a brand-new subject, I can see enjoying it. I actually did enjoy the second section tonight; they supplied a good deal of the energy, and I just had to conduct the orchestra.
As long as I can stay two steps ahead, maybe I'll be ah-ight.
2 comments:
You'll be ah-ight. :-) Love that Southernism.
I have two 50-minute Mon-Wed-Fri classes this semester, and really wish they were longer. 75 minutes plus is ideal for me. I just wish I could come up with more ways to break up the monotony--you know, students' attention spans wane toward the end of class. Guess I could get them to write...but what else? I'm not yet really good at thinking up new stuff for class.
In 50 minutes I can cover maybe one topic. I finally started doing sign-in sheets for attendance because I was losing 2-3 min. just checking the gd roster.
I haven't been on here in forever, and I'm sorry. Other things have taken precedent, like for example proposing to the little lady, and she accepting.
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