Whether Isabella wakes me up at 4:00 am or 4:30 am doesn’t really matter that much. I can rarely sleep past 5:00 am anyway. It seems to be only the days when I want to wake up early and get moving that I seem to always sleep a little later and am moving very slowly when I do get out of bed. Of course, Isabella doesn’t allow me to move too slowly because as soon as she sees me sit on the side of the bed, she’s ready to have her wet food in her bowl. She can be very impatient.
Today (I’m actually writing this before I went to sleep last night), I’m hoping is a day that I will wake up early and get moving. I teach on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, and I like to get up and go over my lecture before class. I usually go over the first part while I’m eating breakfast, and then, I do my best to get to work early so I have some quiet time at work before anyone arrives to finish going over my notes and get ready for class.
Teaching this class has been a lot of work this semester because I’m teaching something I’ve never taught before, so there are no previous lecture notes or anything else to make things easier. I only have a few more weeks of class, and I know I’ll miss teaching when this semester is over. I realized years ago that I did not want to teach full time, and usually the classes I teach for other professors let me still be in the classroom some.
I really do love teaching and getting to know my students. When I teach for other professors, I get to see the students for one or two classes, and that’s it. Having a full semester with the same group of students has been nice. I hope that I will be teaching at least one class every academic year, but we’ll see if that happens. The extra money is nice too. It’s been a lot work, long days and early mornings preparing for this class, but it really has been a joy teaching this semester. I’ve had a great group of students, and that always makes a huge difference.
As a retired teacher (after 37years of teaching on many levels of high school, college or university) I can relate to you.
ReplyDeleteHaving the same group is the most interesting as you finally really know who they are and sometimes even making friends with some of them.
You cannot please everyone but wiht my all time experiences, rarely will I meet one of them and have nice souvenirs they are telling to me.
I also know how it's lot of work to prepare a new curriculum to teach but after those laborious hours, it's so satifying to see how your students appreciate your teachings.
What do you teach? I'm guessing history.
ReplyDeleteRB, in the past I have always taught history. This semester, I’m still teaching history, but it’s the history of art and architecture. I always taught this stuff when I’d teach world history, but with this class I get to focus more on the visual arts. They still have to know the history to understand what they are seeing. I was asked to teach it and use museum objects to enhance the class. I’m hoping I’ll be doing the same with a military history class in the future.
ReplyDeleteI too did have to teach history of fine art and architecture in the past and for sure all of what is going on in the world history is included and affected by one and another.
ReplyDeleteNot able to teach one without talking of the other.
Interesante todo lo que contáis.
ReplyDeleteGracias.
Ángel