The ups and downs of teaching

This is my second week of solo teaching, although I have only a 3/4 load. Next week I'll carry a full load. I've never been paid to teach before, unless you count being an organist/choir director for 5 years. And that was only one 2-hour rehearsal a week. Back in 1976 (yes, that long ago) I student-taught middle school History for 3 months. Other than that, zip.

But growing up, I always wanted to be a teacher, and that's what I went to college for. I've always felt it was my calling. Now, As I've said many times, I'm "following my bliss" by doing what I've always wanted to do--not only teach, but live in a totally different culture and learn a new language. Boy howdy, am I getting that now.

But now the pressure is on. After having completely changed the course of my life at age 53 and taken a huge pay cut, will this new career pan out? If it doesn't, I'm back at square one.

Though I've always felt like a teacher at heart, I've also always been afraid of public speaking, due to lack of confidence and insecurity. That's a big hurdle for someone who has to speak all day to classes of 25 people. But there have been times in the past when I did well with my public speaking, I think.

My sense of security has changed a great deal since I lost my job of 19 years a little over a year ago. By necessity, I'm much more comfortable with uncertainty than I was before. And something has changed to my sense of self as well. There are jobs you can do well and jobs you can do well enough. But some people are lucky enough to know in their BONES that what they are doing is right. Finally, at my age, I feel that lucky. And this whole experience has given me a confidence I never had before.

Still, there have been nagging doubts. My first week of team teaching, there were....problems. In one of my first classes, I got to the classroom early , set up up the projector, lowered the screen and was reviewing my notes, waiting for the students to come in. I was wondering why no students had come in yet, when the guy I was team-teaching with rushed into the room and said "Keith, you're in the wrong classroom!" So I gather my things and walk next door into a classfull of students who know what a stupid thing I've just done. With all eyes on me, I now have to log in to the computer and go to the right subdirectories to pull up the correct Powerpoint presentation. That's another thing. Powerpoint? hardly ever done it before. So I was pretty nervous and flubbed it up. I thought I heard a couple of giggles.

But I knew my lesson and was ready to teach it. And after many years of emotional stupidity, I have finally learned that being self-conscious now would help me exactly ZERO percent and that confidence was the only option. So I plunged ahead as if everything were great.

And guess what? They came around. As luck would have it, the class was about how to make small talk. So, as planned, I demonstrated for them how NOT to do it. I pretended to be meeting another student and was painfully shy about it. Well, not only did the students laugh, my fellow teacher let out a big guffaw. I think I surprised them.

But I had some more problems in some other classes. I love Dilbert cartoons and think they are perfectly suited for a lot of the business situations that we teach, so in my first solo teaching I opened the class with not one, not two but THREE Dilbert cartoons. I was warned that the Chinese have a different sense of humor than we do. Plus, humor requires a pretty sophisticated understanding of the language and culture. And finally, it is subjective. Lots of people in the US don't "get" Dilbert. But I cast all those negatives aside, brave with my newfound confidence.

Not. One. Titter. From 25 people in 3 different classes (for a total of 75 people). By the third class, I had deleted the last cartoon and removed the last panel from the first cartoon. Nothing worked. That flustered me. Plus, despite my careful arrangements ahead of time, when I tried to go from the cartoon to my Powerpoint presentation, the Powerpoint was gone. So the class sat there while I fiddled with it for an eternity. Eventually I got it working, but I could tell I'd lost the class.

I got a little paranoid, thinking I heard people talking about "the new teacher" and how bad he was. At the end of the 3rd class, one of the students (appropriately self-named Princess) said, loud enough for everyone to hear. "You need to practice." (I don't care what they always says about the Chinese being indirect. In my experience so far, they can be extremely direct.)

So my confidence was shot. Then I went to lunch with a fellow teacher whom I like and respect, and she repeated to me that I was a "natural" teacher.

Later that same week, I came up with a warmup of Chat Acronyms that was extremely popular with all 3 classes, and that set a new tone.

Today, I taught my 3rd class on "Marketing Warfare", using military terms to discuss business. As part of the presentation, I got to talk about Alexander the Great and Napoleon. I explained how Mao and Sam Walton had similar tactics (by winning over the small towns and countryside first when they were unable to compete in the cities). I could tell they were fascinated.

It wasn't until class started that I realized that 2 of my students are from Russia (easy to spot with their fair complexion and blonde hair). So, on the spot, I worked in about Napolean's disastrous Russian campaign, and they ate it up. I was in my element. This last class was actually ENTHUSIASTIC. What a rush.

Maybe this teaching thing will work out after all.