Be the Devil!

I have many anxieties. I think it is my personality to be an anxious person who loses sleep over the simplest changes in life. However, I will just stick to those that are related to teaching my first class.

As I began the reading for the class, I worried that the students would remember more than me from the reading and I would look like a fool in front of them. This anxiety did not help my reading comprehension and retention skills because I found myself worrying as I read, which meant I spent a lot of time thinking about that worry instead of taking in what I was reading. However, this anxiety has quickly disappeared after the second day of class. Most of the students did the reading, but they did not seem to remember any more than I had. Each example or instance they mentioned were things that I remembered as well.

My other anxiety has been realized, but in a funny way it dispells the first anxiety. I worried that nobody would want to talk, therefore leading to awkward silences and me trying to make them talk. This occurred on Thursday. As strange as it was, I stopped worrying that the students would remember more than I did from the reading. If they did, they did not volunteer that information, so I continued to look and feel like the most prepared person in the room. Although I'm trying to see this situation as the glass half full, I still have the problem of them not wanting to talk. The last half hour of the class felt slow and painful. I resorted to calling on them by name to answer my questions or to share what they had written. I'm sure this did not go over well and probably has made me less popular in their view, but it was the only thing to be done.

I do realize that this silence may be attributed to several things, only one of which I can control. First, the class occurs during lunch time, so they may be hungry and tired. Second, this was the second day of class, so maybe they have not yet warmed up to me. Third, I forgot to play devil's advocate. In an effort to be kind and make them feel comfortable enough to share their thoughts and writing, I declared their verbal contributions to class "good" and "interesting" and "nice." It may have boosted their self-esteems, but it sure did not engender discussion. Tuesday's agenda: be the devil!