Comments:

dandlioneyes - 2006-09-13 22:19:29
great strategy about the e-mails! my dirty little secrets were always related to what teeny-bopper show i happened to be watching religiously at the time... would have been humiliated if they knew. :-)
-------------------------------
elgan - 2006-09-13 22:39:21
One thing my students need not know about me is that I always feel as though I'm faking it, even when I know I'm not.
-------------------------------
rs - 2006-09-14 08:10:48
they will be lucky to have you! I like the idea of you teaching to an empty room.
-------------------------------
Claudia - 2006-09-14 09:14:35
You'll do fine.
-------------------------------
Harriet - 2006-09-14 10:44:04
Dandlioneyes, I can't take credit for originating the email strategy. It was mentioned to me in passing by a faculty member with whom I have periodic talks about pedagogy and I thought it was a good idea. It's definitely helped keep them from asking about every little thing instead of looking it up first. And elgan, I'm beginning to think that the feeling of faking it goes with the job description. Maybe there's someone out there who genuinely feels more qualified to teach his or her subject than anyone else, but I have never met one. Thanks for the votes of confidence.
-------------------------------
Julia - 2006-09-14 11:51:47
I do the same with e-mails, but mine are mostly from/to boys. It's never nice to look like you're always available. Also, I always had an idea in college that the professors hadn't read the book. Unless they wrote it. It's funny that you'll admit it! I don't know anything at all about 19th century music, but I bet I'd enjoy your class.
-------------------------------
Kelley2 - 2006-09-14 11:54:06
ROTFL! Here's the question... Do you think Professor Bloom could make the same confessions?
-------------------------------
Harriet - 2006-09-14 13:08:48
Kelley, re Bloom, hell no. And for what it's worth, I still have the instinct to duck and run when I see him at conferences, which I do with alarming regularity. Prof Sherr's lecture on Tristan and Isolde, however, has worked its way into my own lecture. Julia, I've often had that experience too, but now I understand why. If you're trying to make teaching interesting to yourself as well as your students, you have to filter the information through your own experience, to engage with it. I essentially wrote my own textbook last time I taught the class -- my lecture notes for the term are close to 300 pages long. I'm sure not everyone does it this way, but I need to find myself a framework that works for me, not just that works in general, a filter that allows me to talk about things and make sense of them as they evolve through time and circumstance. I do try to check and make sure I'm not outright disagreeing with anything in the textbook. Because that's just confusing. Unless I take the time to explain it specifically, which requires reading the damn thing.
-------------------------------

add your comment:

your name:
your email:
your url:

back to the entry - Diaryland