"We Just Need to Get There..."
I am freaking myself out about teaching. I have been teaching since 1994. It would take me a while to count the number of classes I have taught, and even longer to estimate the number of students. But in preparing for classes today, I spent way too much time worrying about things. I was getting upset because prep was taking longer than I thought it should. One of my goals for this year is to type out my lesson plans for class by the night before. That may sound ordinary to many of you, or perhaps something I should have been doing all along. But having taught for so long, there have been several days in the past when I'm teaching a familiar text or a familiar technique and I don't think about it in detail. I just do what I've done before because it's worked. This year, I want to be more systematic. I want to plan a bit more to make room for new ideas and keep a much clearer record of things than I've done in the past.

Before, I would do it here and there, on the days when several things had to get done in one session. But most of the time, we're discussing the reading or doing in-class writing, the things that I have been trained to do and that have now become second nature. But I know that if I plan now, then I can make it easier on myself in subsequent years. And I'm realizing that I need to do that. As the years progress, so do the demands on my time. So do the things I want to accomplish.

I'm rambling. In a nutshell, I spent too much time thinking about one class and not enough time on another. I second guessed myself. I explored on the web for new ideas when what I've done in the past works and when time was running out. And in the end? All of my classes today went just fine. There was some discussion, which was pretty good since I wasn't trying to get a big discussion going in any class. We're still in overview, introductory phase. I spoke easily in each class about the relevant contextual, background information no matter how much I'd typed out on the sheet.

I think typing things out is a good idea, but I think I need to time myself when I create them. Reading for class takes as long as it needs to take. But actually planning what I will do first, second, third, and all that just needs to happen. I don't need to freak myself out about it.

I don't want to become like one of those professors I had in college who had taught so long that they opened a notebook and spoke from what they had been doing for decades. Nor do I want to be like those who seem smart but wildly disorganized, with a sheaf of papers through which they had to flip constantly to find what they needed.

Teaching has gone well for over ten years. I want to be better, but I hope I always want to be better. Still, I need to remember that what I've done serves my students well. When the status quo works, we should still strive for more. We just don't need to kill ourselves to get there.
- posted by Nels @ 10:24 PM | | | Link |