It used to be a "bad teacher" was someone who didn't teach well. Now it's a 35-year-old fatty who runs off with a 12-year-old boy. When I say I'm a bad teacher, I'm thinking of the old-school definition, like when I say I'm gay because my wife is hysterical.
I teach three discussion sections that are tied to a professor's lecture. The professor has said the students need to attend discussion at least 12 times. Depending on the discussion section's day of the week, that means they can miss two, three, or four times.
One of my sections meets at 8 am and only has five students enrolled (one of whom never shows up). Since the other four have all been there more than 12 times, they suggested that next week we meet in the food court and have breakfast together.
I would probably have said no, but this is my last semester here, so I'm more open to doing things that could get me in trouble. I said we'd look into it. Well, in looking into it, we discovered that the food court omelet table isn't open on Thursdays. One student suggested we go to a coffee shop off campus. Again, I probably should say no, but I didn't. And this is how next week's discussion section is being held at Milton's over breakfast.
I am reminded of the mythical Sunday School lesson taught by the man who is now my brother-in-law. The month before I turned 12 and entered the class, he taught a lesson on "what not to do on Fast Sunday" that featured going to the convenience store to buy candy and soda. All I knew was, when I finally entered the class, he'd been replaced as the teacher and the students couldn't stop talking about how awesome it had been. (Four years later he was my Priest's Quorum adviser and we watched "Blazing Saddles" as our activity. This was actually an improvement over our Teacher's Quorum adviser who let us watch "Aliens" and "Aliens 2" as an activity.)
I keep thinking this discussion section is going to get me in trouble, but maybe I will gain legendary status among my students. And what are they going to do, fire me?
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Was that Roger??? If so, I totally believe it. I believe I once had a spanish class at Wendy's. We were learning about food vocabulary.
If that is bad teaching, put me down on that list. If had any time to spare in my semester, I would have them all go out for drinks and then give them a pop quiz that disclosed how much they had studied and what they had learned during the semester. Then, I would use that as their final grade.
I am not above using alcohol to make grading easier.
Post a Comment