Teachin talk

I think it is interesting to think about how dynamics change from class to class. While this is the first time that I have had to teach 1020, I have taught Popular Culture for a few years and used a similar syllabus. Now, something that is very successful in one class may bomb the next year. In fact, you really never know how something is going to go over with an intro class at BG. Interestingly, when I go to my gifted summer camp, most of my lessons work very well. Perhaps this is because of the culture of learning in the camp because they tend to jump on the opportunity to try something new. Also, I have done some activities where I have taught in front of a group of my peers and they tend to really like my activities. I think teaching introduction classes are very challenging at this school. I am also curious to talk to my old professors at St. Lawrence University about their experiences teaching intro classes because I may be romanticizing the whole experience. Maybe teaching intro classes anywhere kind of sucks and we just remember our own great experiences because we enjoyed learning.

My own class is going well. The kids really like the group activities and hate the lectures. I feel like lectures are a very important part of an college education, so occasionally use them when I think they need some help figuring something out. The issue is that if I am not jumping up and down and/or showing youtube videos they just roll their eyes into the backs of their heads and stop listening. Even the best of my students look bored out of their mind. I try and make it as interactive as I possibly can, but no matter what I do they do not like it. I understand that we are supposed to work to every one's learning abilities, but at the same time I feel like they need to work with me. I can't make everything super interesting to everyone all the time. I find the stuff I am talking about to be very interesting and I think I show it, but at the same time it doesn't really help. We tend to blame ourselves, or the system, or the parents, or the states, or the governments, but when does the responsibility go to the actual student?

Rant

I suppose that I should talk more about my own class experiences for teaching Com 1020. I have had an average experience with it. Most of my kids do not respond when asked questions. The same four or five kids answer all the time, which in most cases would be great, but it gets to be monotonous. I find the material to be very simplistic and not challenging to me or the students. I think I am disappointed because thinking that this was a speech class, I had assumed that maybe, just maybe I would have gotten a group of talkative students. I guess I forgot that this is an introductory class. I by no means want to disparage my students, they all seem to be pretty bright individuals, but I think the culture of Bowling Green is to just send students out with the least amount of information possible. When I taught introduction to Popular Culture at BGSU, the standards were much higher, and yet I still felt that the young adults needed to be pushed more. Perhaps my judgment is clouded by the really high expectations my teachers had in undergrad. I am more in the line of thought that a lot of the students that are going to college are nowhere near prepared to be here and that we should challenge those that do have the skills to handle high levels of academic work. In my experience, growing up in a small farming community, everyone was being pushed to go to four year intuitions. Not everyone is ready to go to a four year University right out of high school. This is not to say that they should not go at all, but I think we should all find our own spaces rather than being coddled into staying at a school for years even though one is almost failing out. I know that many students here have full time jobs and have many other things going on in their lives, but at the same time, why does that mean that I need to lower my expectations? I had four campus jobs and I still managed to make Dean’s list most of my four years in college. I think that we can find all the excuses we want for these students just to make ourselves feel better about the level of participation we receive in the classroom. I would love to work at a place that was challenging and interesting. Why can’t I work with kids that are really interested in higher level theory? Who want to be there to be pushed to learn? I am not saying that we should just have a ton of busy work (like many graduate classes). I am talking about quality over quantity. I want to see people who really want to be here and are ready to be challenged to think in new ways. In my two years here, I have only seen a couple of students who really feel this way. On the other hand, maybe I am not looking in the right places and perhaps I am forced to teach silly classes that do not attract those types of students.

9/7/09

This week I would like to focus on inexperience. I rarely have felt inexperienced in teaching because I have served in many roles as a mentor. However, in coming to the Communication Department at BG, I feel really under-prepared. The most shocking thing is that it doesn’t really matter because so little is expected from BG students. During my teaching presentation, I was critiqued because I did not go in depth as much as I could have. Well, that is as in depth as the department and the class expects me to go. I have never taught a class where it is almost expected that students will get A’s for doing the bare minimum. I believe that we are doing a disservice to our students because we are not preparing them for the real world or higher education. We give them the most basic information and expect nothing from them. As a teacher, it is more frustrating because I do not know the context to fill in the gaps that are missing from the readings. I don’t have the time or energy to really get to know all the material beforehand. Perhaps that sounds lazy, but my priorities have to be elsewhere if I am to survive in graduate school. After grading most of my kid’s first speeches, I am amazed to find that the system is set up so that they receive an A or B no matter what. I feel like I am unwillingly becoming part of a system of “dumbing” down of America. Why do we not push students to do their best? Why do we just push students through the system? I think that I would like to work for a school that has high expectations of their students. I think that some people are not prepared to go to college at 18 and perhaps it is not a bad thing to let them flunk out. What is the point of education when we are not really pushing people to do their best?

8/31/09

I have been teaching or TAing different courses for years now, and yet I am still nervous whenever I go into a classroom. I think I was particularly nervous this year because I have never taken a Communication or public speaking class before. For the first time in a long while I do not feel as comfortable with the material and feel like I am slightly behind the curve. Cultural Studies is, in some ways, much different from Communications which makes it kind of difficult to transition. Luckily, the new text book for the class uses a lot of popular culture references which allows me to more fully use my background. Interestingly, I didn't find out that I was going to be teaching my own class until a week before it began. While I read all of these books about how to be a good teacher and after our discussions in class about what it means to be a good teacher, I chuckle to myself because the system is set up so that it is very hard to be an effective teacher. Often grad students do not find out what they are going to teach until right before the class starts. Even if the material is all set before you get there, it still does not leave time for one to become comfortable with the course content. On top of that, grad students are put into a position where teaching is the LAST priority. I love to teach, but at the same time, teaching is not what keeps me in grad school, my grades matter much more than my teacher evaluations. So, we get thrown into a class that we may be uncomfortable with and we are expected to research and write at publishable levels while teaching a possibly new course. The reality is that we have a lot of factors set against us going into these classes. While I pride myself in being a good teacher, I feel myself being “lazy” simply so that I can prioritize my life. How can I be a good teacher when I am reading the material with my students and have 300 pages to read for my other classes?
With all this in my head, my first day of class actually went really well. I am always amazed at how students automatically assume that you know everything about the material you are teaching. Obviously, I have read the chapter for the day, but not anything beyond that. Also, the benefit of being in the classroom for a couple of years is that you can actually sound like you are well versed in the material. Sometimes you will catch yourself talking and you think “wow, I actually know what I am doing”, but then you trip over yourself because of this. I had the kids do a brief introduction because I make it a priority to not keep the kids the full class. I think that often teachers think that quantity of time in class and doing homework is more important than quality. I never could understand professors that would have a fit if there was a snow day because they often made the syllabus and can change it. One of my favorite classes consisted of six, two page papers. We had a good deal of reading, but it was more reasonable than my higher level classes. I got a lot out of the class because I was forced to talk about political theory in such a concise way. The Communications 1020 class is set up so there is a ton of work, but not much of it is that challenging or substantial.