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.