AJ is upstairs watching The Little Einsteins, a show that makes me crazy, simply because it seems so obviously derived from research about children�s brains and not from actual children. It panders to the current trend towards indoctrinating your youngest children with as much high brow cultural information in hopes of making them smarter and better. But AJ likes it and he seems to learn a fair amount about classical music from it � he readily identifies pieces he�s heard in Little Einsteins when he hears them on the radio. And given my own interests, I�m always happy about that.

I�m down in my office stewing about my own thoughts on classical music. I�ve been agonizing all weekend about whether to take this job. It will be more work, another day away from the disseratation and AJ and another day of a hefty commute (although not nearly as bad as the commute I�ll be doing on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And by the way, who signs up to take a 3-hour class that meets only on Friday afternoons anyway?).

I�m also nervous about jumping in on such short notice and also about taking over a class in medias res. I�m a planner. I write out my lectures in detail and practice them beforehand and then wing it in class. It�s anal, I know, but I feel more comfortable that way at this stage of the game while I�m still fairly new at this and still building my confidence. I won�t have the luxury of that kind of preparation with this class, although mostly my prep for my other class will prepare me for it. The thing that�s making me most nervous about this aspect of things is the fact that there is no way for me to get a hold of the textbook and CDs for the course until Tuesday. This means that although I know I�ll need to prep a lecture for the early baroque for Friday�s class, I have no idea which pieces they�re studying and what their textbook says about them. If they are things I�m not so familiar with, I�ll only have 3 days to get up to speed. And the one thing I�ve read about the textbook is that some of the examples seem willfully to flaunt textbook convention. They don�t go so far as to say that they are obscure, but that they are not the most common pieces to represent the era in an introductory text.

Also, the syllabus says I�m supposed to give them a quiz on Friday. But how could I possibly give them a quiz if I haven�t ever seen them before and don�t really know what they�ve done so far? Ridiculous. Although I don�t think there�s any particular obligation for me to stick to that schedule, the syllabus does say they need three quizzes, a midterm and a final [This is not the way I usually teach � I give written homework assignments instead of quizzes and give a quiz instead of a midterm.]

And I�m worried I�m not going to have enough time for research. I need to finish the diss and also write a paper due to committee on Feb. 1 for a conference I�ll be speaking at in early March. I may also be giving another presentation at that conference that I would have to prepare. I have two half-finished articles I�d really like to shop around. And then there�s the issue of looking for full-time work.

And in all this, the thing that�s bothering me most is that I wouldn�t be able to take AJ ice skating anymore.

Why should I do it? Because I work better, faster, smarter when I�m feeling like a professional. Because I love the idea of teaching in downtown Chicago. Because I really like the guy who offered me the position � he�s a good, supportive friend (which, considering I haven�t known him very long, is highly unusual) and I think he�d be great to work with. Because this school is one of the best bets for adjunct work while I�m filling a career gap or because we decide we aren�t ready to leave Chicago. It�s got a good, solid program, it uses a lot of adjuncts, many of them from my program, and after the first class, pays better than most. From talking to others who have taught there and moved on to full-time, tenure-track positions, it has helped them get jobs. One of my fellow students, now teaching at a well-known music program in a large southern university, said he was told by someone on the hiring committee that the teaching at this school was what got him his position. The fact that he came out of one of the best programs at one of the top research universities in the country made them nervous that his teaching wouldn�t be up to snuff. But they knew that if he could do well teaching at this school, then he was well-equipped not just as a researcher but as a teacher. Because I feel like if I�m doing what I want to be doing then it will be easier for me to feel convinced about my abilities long enough to get through a marathon academic job interview.

I am nervous and jumpy about all of this. And about teaching too.

All through school, from preschool to graduate school lectures, I never really thought of teaching as a performance or my teachers as performers. But there�s more performance than meets the eye. I have a different personality in the classroom, I think. It�s not something that happens consciously. Perhaps I�m emulating teachers past. More likely it�s my own nerves. I try to tame it by writing out my script and practicing the improv. I think carefully about how to present things best to hold interest, to allow students to make discoveries, to make arguments easy to follow. I plan in free-for-all time, where the students take over in a controlled way. I find myself thinking about the theater company I worked at right out of college. The company (still going) performs one show. It is part script and part improv and audience participation. Aside from the fact that the subject matter is not at all educational, it is not unlike a classroom.

To love teaching, you do, I think, have to thrive on thinking on your feet, on having curve balls thrown at you. You need to enjoy the bobbing and weaving that goes on when other people�s experiences intersect your own. Now two classes are alike. You need to be able to accommodate the differences to do it well.

But that aspect of teaching, which is indeed what I love about it, is also what makes me nervous before I walk into the room with my notes, CDs and packet of dry-erase markers. It�s like walking on the edge of the cliff. Sometimes you jump and are carried by the breeze. Sometimes you plummet and find yourself scrabbling up the rocky cliff.

What�s it going to be?

3 people said it like they meant it