I have had increasingly less to say about teaching as time goes on, due in large part to few things striking me as particularly novel anymore. If you factor out the semester I took off, this is the start of my fourth year of teaching; with the time off accounted for, it's the latter half of my third year.
Even the more egregious student behavior seems blase after you've seen it a few times.
That said, never before yesterday have I been in the middle of the class, lecturing, no less, writing on the board, and been interrupted by a student coming into my classroom asking for directions. From me.
At first, I thought she might have been one of my students, straggling in very, very late, an hour into a 75-minute class. She looked at me expectantly, like she had a question, and granted, I do not readily recognize student faces yet, so I asked what she needed. She asked where to find a location for a room and building I did not recognize as being on the campus. I was a little surprised by the interruption of class for directions, so instead of telling her we were in the middle of class, I instead said I didn't recognize the location. She pulled out her planner and showed me the class name, room, and time she was looking for.
"Oh," I told her. "That's this room. In half an hour."
"OK," she said, and walked right back out.
I have to give that class credit for not bursting into laughter as I would have been tempted to do were I watching the proceedings. Still, this incident is one of several signs I've been seeing that seem to suggest a more oblivious student population than previous semesters. I may have more stories yet.
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2 comments:
I am beginning life as a TA in grad school and yesterday we heard, twice in two different classes no less, the following question: Do we need to bring our book to class?
Yeah, Oblivious sums it up well.
~Ye Old Skewed View Author
Hey! You got into grad school! Congrats! I do have to say, though, the "Do we need our book" question is not an unusual one. Nor is it uncommon to spend a whole class period discussing the expectations of, say, an essay, only to have to repeat it the next class... for a student who was there when the assignment was given!
Aw, man, you sure you don't want to come back to blogging now that you will have your own oblivious student stories...?
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