I am so ready to get back into my usual routine. Like many beginnings, the start of a brand new semester has always given me a little anxiety, and that normally expresses itself in some pretty weird dreams in the week leading up to and during the first week of class. I have talked to other people about these dreams, and apparently I am not the only one that has them! So maybe you can relate...
They always seem to go like this: a new term at some school (that is never my actual school for some reason, although one time it was Hogwarts) begins, and I have NO WRITTEN SCHEDULE of where any of my classes are, or what time they start, or what days they are. So I have to keep guessing, and naturally show up late, forget to bring crucial materials, and in the worst case, completely forget to go for the entire semester and fail by default.
But the funny thing is the classes that I always try to go to the class that I've missed all semester for the final exam, and every time it's taught by the same guy! The english teacher I had during 7th and 9th grade, to be exact. I find this hilarious, because most of the time the class in question is either trigonometry or chemistry (which is why missing it is such a travesty, I am notoriously bad at both and have a piss poor idea of whats going on in both subjects even if I'm there paying attention every day). I guess my brain just tried to match the worst teacher with the worst subjects? Nice try...
With the new responsibilities that come with serving as a TA for a psy lab, I have a new addition to this dream. Now, rather than not attending classes all semester, I come to class and somewhere along the way lose all of the student's final papers!
I also have dreams that I forget to show up to run studies in the lab and prospective participants write angry letters to my advisor about how I wasted their time.
I swear, sometimes these dreams have me begging for a normal nightmare about a zombie apocalypse rather than stuff that could actually happen!!
Teaching taught me a lot last semester, and I have reaped the rewards of these life long learning experiences weeks after they left my class for good. I used to see teachers that I thought were good, even great, and think about how since I knew what I thought made them good, that it would be easy to emulate.
I had no idea how wrong I was. First of all, the people who were great instructors for me weren't necessarily a great fit for other people.
Second, great teachers have to be engaging, clear, and appropriately challenging all in the face of
- students on cell phones under the desk (yeah, we can see that and it's very distracting, thanks)
- people who eat food (FOR THE LOVE OF GOD CLOSE YOUR MOUTH)
- talking during a lecture
- rudeness
- blatant disinterest
(please note that the list above is based not on my experience per se, but on a conglomeration of war stories I've heard over time, and things I witnessed as an undergrad from my own peers)
The best advice however, that I've received since I started TAing is worth sharing here, and thus I am going to send it out into the world so that anyone else ever put in a scenario where this applies can use it.
"Never let someone come to you and tell you that they don't "get it". They need to be specific. If they were listening to you at all, they should have a specific question about what you were explaining. Saying "I don't get it" puts the responsibility back on you; to reteach your lecture, to re-explain instructions, to repeat something you've said five times. You've already done that. You don't have time for "I don't get it". Spend your time clarifying a real question."
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