What I'd do for free
Don't let this get around, but I would teach this Shakespeare class for free.
I had such a good time in class yesterday. I knew I missed teaching, but there's nothing quite like teaching what you really WANT to teach. I guess I've never really had that experience before, so this job is going to be even better -- hopefully -- than any previous teaching experience. And my previous experiences were pretty darn good...
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
I had a tough start to the day. I was in a horrible amount of traffic -- sort of my worse nightmare. I gave myself an hour to get there. It usually takes about 40 minutes, but I thought I'd get there early, have a cup of coffee and jaunt off to class. Yeah right. There were hm... seven accidents total on the three major interstates I had to take. Fortunately, I only had to deal with two of them -- the others were in areas that didn't affect me. But it was very aggravating to get on the road just to find out that this was going to be a shitty commute. I called Aric and asked him to text me the phone number to the English department so I could tell them I was going to be late. He helped me out. I called the department and had to leave a message. It turns out the secretary was in the same traffic as me. But she got there before 9:30 and was able to tell my students that I was running late. She called me back and said all was well. Thanks Tonianne! Once I finally got there, got parking, and got to my class, I was about 12 minutes late. Ugh. It was not cool. But I tried to be a good sport about it, and the students were fine. I joked that my tough attendance policy and tardiness policy was obviously fraught with irony at this point. They thought that was pretty funny. But I said as long as they were in their seats before I was (regardless of the time), then I wouldn't count them tardy. That's obvious -- and reasonable.
After that traffic nonsense, I told them my story -- schools, etc. -- and then we went through the syllabus. No biggie. After that, I asked them to introduce themselves and tell me what their experience with Shakespeare was. It was good to hear that some of them really love Shakespeare already. And all of them understand -- some with amusing gravity -- that Shakespeare is important for all English majors to know. So that's good. Everyone seemed happy to be there. After that, I proceeded to give a brief lecture on Shakespeare's bio stuff, disabused them about the idiotic authorship question, and then gave them an intro to the Renaissance. It was good fun. We used the whole class period, which I'm sure sucked for them, but there's no time to waste in this class. Should be fun.
So yeah, I would do it for free. But don't tell the school that!
I had such a good time in class yesterday. I knew I missed teaching, but there's nothing quite like teaching what you really WANT to teach. I guess I've never really had that experience before, so this job is going to be even better -- hopefully -- than any previous teaching experience. And my previous experiences were pretty darn good...
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
I had a tough start to the day. I was in a horrible amount of traffic -- sort of my worse nightmare. I gave myself an hour to get there. It usually takes about 40 minutes, but I thought I'd get there early, have a cup of coffee and jaunt off to class. Yeah right. There were hm... seven accidents total on the three major interstates I had to take. Fortunately, I only had to deal with two of them -- the others were in areas that didn't affect me. But it was very aggravating to get on the road just to find out that this was going to be a shitty commute. I called Aric and asked him to text me the phone number to the English department so I could tell them I was going to be late. He helped me out. I called the department and had to leave a message. It turns out the secretary was in the same traffic as me. But she got there before 9:30 and was able to tell my students that I was running late. She called me back and said all was well. Thanks Tonianne! Once I finally got there, got parking, and got to my class, I was about 12 minutes late. Ugh. It was not cool. But I tried to be a good sport about it, and the students were fine. I joked that my tough attendance policy and tardiness policy was obviously fraught with irony at this point. They thought that was pretty funny. But I said as long as they were in their seats before I was (regardless of the time), then I wouldn't count them tardy. That's obvious -- and reasonable.
After that traffic nonsense, I told them my story -- schools, etc. -- and then we went through the syllabus. No biggie. After that, I asked them to introduce themselves and tell me what their experience with Shakespeare was. It was good to hear that some of them really love Shakespeare already. And all of them understand -- some with amusing gravity -- that Shakespeare is important for all English majors to know. So that's good. Everyone seemed happy to be there. After that, I proceeded to give a brief lecture on Shakespeare's bio stuff, disabused them about the idiotic authorship question, and then gave them an intro to the Renaissance. It was good fun. We used the whole class period, which I'm sure sucked for them, but there's no time to waste in this class. Should be fun.
So yeah, I would do it for free. But don't tell the school that!