I am having one of those semesters where I am just surviving. I knew coming into this semester that it would be one of survival because I am back to teaching full-time as well as pursuing EMT certification and trying to be a decent mom and wife and maintain some semblance of a social life. Nonetheless, I continue to care a great deal about my teaching. I'm not sure if it's because I really care about my students or it's just ego or I don't want my students writing horrible things about me on RateMyProfessors.com, but it doesn't really matter, because the end result is that I'm still trying to be a good teacher, and that's a win-win situation.
The spring semester is my nemesis; I teach a class that I have redone every semester, yet my teaching evaluations just get worse... and worse... and worse. Talk about depressing. In my heart, I know that I have improved as a teacher over six years, and I have a number of diatribes I could launch into, but I'll save that for another time. The point is that I have tried a lot of different things and none of them seem to make a difference. Keeping in mind that it doesn't seem to matter what I do with this particular class, I decided that this semester I would go with the course plan that requires the least amount of work from me (in this case work = grading).
My goal every day and every week is to just get through. But being a student again, albeit in a completely different setting than I'm used to, is perhaps teaching me more about teaching than I've learned in the past six years of full-time teaching. I am not "student-teaching" in a traditional sense, but I am "student-teaching" in that I am both a student and a teacher, and my experience as a student is giving me a lot of food for thought on how to improve as a teacher.
Some insights:
- I am learning empathy. A lot of students are really confused. A lot of times it's because they spend 90% of their day with their eyes glued to their cell phones, and aren't paying any attention to what you're telling them, but sometimes the confusion is legitimate. Case in point: a few months ago, I blogged about registering to take courses for EMT certification at the community college. Registering was somewhat of an ordeal. And as it turns out, I thought I was registering for courses that met all day on Sundays, which was doable to me. However, those courses really met on BOTH Saturdays AND Sundays, which was not doable to me. I felt like an idiot when I finally figured this out, but at the same time I feel like my idiocy was somewhat justified, because when you see that a class meets on "SU," it looks like Sunday. And even if you work in higher ed, it doesn't necessarily occur to you that most registration systems require each day of the week to be represented by one letter, and thus the "S" stands for SATURDAY while the "U" stands for SUNDAY.
Apparently a lot of our students have the same problem with "TR," which means Tuesday/Thursday, with the "T" meaning Tuesday and the "R" meaning Thursday. After having taught TR courses for six years, I feel like students who don't know this are idiots (like me), but I now have profound empathy for those students who show up on R thinking it was the first day of class. I guess "TR" looks as much like THURSDAY as "SU" looks like SUNDAY.
On a side note, once I figured out I was an idiot, I promptly dropped the community college courses and signed up to take an EMT course through the local hospital. The course is at night as opposed to the weekends, which is difficult during my very busy weeks, but at least I have the weekends for my sanity.
- People tell me I am intimidating. I don't try to be, but I've also never tried NOT to be. Until now. A lot of students tell me the college environment intimidates them, especially older, non-traditional aged students, and while I've always been sympathetic to this, I now fully understand it as well. I am the opposite of most people; I am comfortable in academia, and I am intimidated outside of it. Most of the people in my EMT class are people with a lot of practical experience such as ex-military, firefighters, and CNAs. They talk about things I don't understand, like how the emergency response system works in our town and how hospitals work, and they use terms I've never heard before. It's intimidating. Fortunately, there is a very laid back classroom atmosphere so I don't go to class feeling stressed every night. I've tried to bring some of this casualness into my own classroom at the university. I'm realizing that a less formal atmosphere might be more conducive to learning for a lot of people.
- The instructor for the course, quite frankly, sort of stinks. But, he is a super nice guy, and tells a lot of funny stories. As I was telling a colleague, it's obvious he doesn't teach for a living. Being in his class reminds me of a time when I was at a conference with my advisor while in grad school. During one of the talks, my advisor leaned over to me and said, "Obviously all these people are from research universities, because students would never put up with this!" Nevertheless, niceness goes a long ways, and the funny stories and casual atmosphere make the four hours pass relatively quickly. I can actually stay awake and pay attention, which is no small feat after working all day. And... I am actually learning a lot.
The instructor is very positive and fully expects everyone to pass the class. This is a much different attitude than in academia, where introductory science courses are viewed as a means to weed out unworthy people. I certainly didn't invent this attitude, but I've fully bought into it. Now, I am questioning that mentality. I have always been book smart, but I have questionable hands-on skills. I am dreading the hands-on practical at the end of the class. I am certainly glad that the instructor doesn't teach the course as a weeder course, or I'd surely be plucked out and discarded.
Interestingly, on lab nights, our instructor brings in other instructors to help. One of these other instructors is AWESOME but at the same time SUPER SCARY. She yells at you and makes fun of you and will chew you out if you take the Lord's name in vain. I'm terrified of this woman. And I'm not the only one. The class is full of a lot of people with a lot of practical, hands-on experience, and even the 60-year-old Fire Chief in the class is scared of this woman. As our instructor explained, you either love her or you hate her. I love her. I fear her, but I love her. I love her, because I realize she is me. Her teaching style is through intimidation. But it's not because she is mean, it's because she wants you to know stuff and be competent. And personally, I want the person standing between me and death to know stuff and be competent. And if I'm the person standing between someone and death, I want to know stuff and be competent. Nevertheless, I'm glad I don't have to have Scary Woman every day; that would stress me out.
I am not sure if this new attitude shows or not, or if it is even possible to truly change one's attitudes at the age of 40, but I certainly hope it is. Regardless, I have enjoyed teaching my nemesis class this semester more than ever before. There is, of course, irony in this. In the process of trying to leave my job, I am finding a renewed love for teaching.The moral of this is that there is a balance I'm striving to find. Although I do tell funny stories in class, most of the respect I get is from being organized, clear, straight-forward, and running a tight ship, so to speak. I'm not as extreme as Scary Woman (you could never get away with that in academia), but I do think students probably either really like or really dislike me, without much in between. While some intimidation has its place, I realize now that I really don't want my students to see class as a stressful experience day after day, and I don't really want them to see me in the same way as I see Scary Woman.
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