Monday, August 28, 2023

Busy Weeks Ahead

Classes start back this week, and for the first time in over ten years, I’ll be back in a college classroom teaching a full semester long course using the museum’s collection. I’ve been teaching a class here and there for various professors who want to use objects from the museum, but that’s just one or two days in those classes. My first class will be tomorrow, and unless there was a rush of students signing up for it over the weekend, it should be a nice small group of students.

In addition to my class, we have a new exhibit we are preparing to open on Friday. Also, during the two weeks after this one, I’ll be teaching more than 30 classes for other professors hoping to use objects from the museum. Nearly every day during September, I have at least one class a day, sometimes, there will be seven or eight in a day. 

It's tiring and a lot of work, but there is always a rush at the beginning of the semester. It should slow down in October. If you’ve ever taught, you know how tiring teaching can be. You have to be “on” and at your best for your students. It’s a good tiring though, especially if your students are enjoying their learning experience.

5 comments:

uvdp said...

Left painting of Brad Greenwood : https://fuckingyoung.es/trouble-in-art/

VRCooper said...

Good Luck----

I loved teaching. I liked the idea of teaching in such a way that you could see the lights turn on in their heads.

I taught in the US AF for 2 and 1/2 years. I taught over 32 subjects in a 5-day course titled Medical Readiness. I was part of a teaching team of about 5 or 6. I taught enlisted as well as officers. We taught in different didactics-lecture and hands-on. Classes were various time lengths depending on the subject at hand-field first aid, evacuating injured from the field, gas chamber, wartime stress... Basically, anything to survive in the field. One of the student's favorites was compass training. I taught in the classroom at night for an hour and then broke them up into groups and sent them into the field to find various coordinates according to their teams. They loved it. Running around in a large open field at night. They had to keep in mind they were enemy territory and all rules applied. Special flashlights, being quiet, using a walkie-talkie to communicate to homebase-the office-to verify if the coordinates they found are theirs.... The other was loading a REAL C-135 military cargo plane. We broke them up into teams and they had to load stretchers onto the plane. The plane was stationary but the tail mouth would open up with hydraulics. Yes, there is a proper way to carry patients up and down the ramp and load them 4 high ones in the plane. The sickest patients go on the bottom and the not-so on the very top. One of my favorite courses was taking students to various obstacles in the field. The instructions were to get from point A to point B with the equipment given. It was all doable. The objective was to observe them working together as a team and collaborating to get from one point to the other inside the rules given. I would love it when they figured it out and executed the task flawlessly. Good times.

Have fun in class. Who knows maybe a flirty one will bring you an apple.

naturgesetz said...

That's quite a load to start, but the semester course should be fun.

BosGuy said...

Good luck teaching. It is a lot of work but can be very rewarding.

Joe said...

Thanks, uvdp. The model is Kacey Carrig.

VRCooper, I’ve always enjoyed teaching college classes, and my class today (the first class of the semester) seemed to go well. It’s a small group and I’m trying to get them comfortable enough to have some conversations so I can use the Socratic Method as much as possible in class.

It is a heavy load to begin with, naturgesetz, but I enjoy what I do. It will slow down once October gets here.

BosGuy, I was able to do a lot of the preparations during the summer, but it can still be a lot of work. I think I’ll enjoy this group of students. 🀞