Thoughts about the Year Thus Far

Well. It's been a week. Partly good, partly frustrating, partly enlightening.

When the semester began, my classes were pretty small. I wasn't sure what to make of this. Was it a good thing? Not a good thing? I don't know. I will say that it gave me the opportunity to try some new things, focus more on discussions and less on lecture, and think about letting the students lead some discussions. The division of my classes was also a new obstacle. My morning class is a division between guys and girls, with a few upper classmen, but my afternoon class was an all-male extravaganza. What a dynamic. My Monday/Wednesday class is very small and at first it was all guys but at the last minute, a girl from India joined, changing the dynamic as well.

One week in, I've had a lot to think about. I think the most interesting discovery has been teaching a class of all guys. On the second day of class, they showed up having not read, not done the homework, overall massively unprepared. And so I laid into them. There was a lot of sarcasm, a lot of awkward conversations about why the reading hadn't been do, maybe a little bit of shaming. But they got it. And that's what I love about this class. They took their metaphorical beating and then they moved on. The rest of the class was great- lots of discussion, participation, making connections. It was awesome.

I was a bit concerned about how the small class was going to go but so far, we've talked the entire class period. I think that because it's such a small class, they know they can't get away with not saying anything. The two football players I have in that class may be the most vocal, which is awesome.

I'm excited to see what this year holds. I know it's going to be different from last year and the year before that but it's nice to know that after this semester I'll have a plan for a big class and a smal class I also will greatly appreciate shorter meeting days, after those days of meeting from 2 am-3:30 pm. But I think that the students have some great potential and I'm excited to see what happens.