Greetings from the depths

....of work, that is. It's a super duper amazingly busy week in the teaching world for me. I am doing the main lecture in my course that I am the teaching fellow for. Two times. That's an extra six hours of teaching. The first session was tonight, and it went well, I believe.

Then, add to that two sessions of another course, where I'll be running class for a small group. Six more hours of teaching.

On top of my usual two hour-long sections which take enough prep in and of themselves.

So, fourteen hours of teaching. Doesn't sound like much, but boy does it take me out of me. But I do so love it.

So for now, I'm waving from the depths of "busyness" and looking forward to emerging triumphant on the other end.

Oh, and that December project is still forthcoming. And 'twill be fun!

Silence

I love the feeling of leading a class/discussion section effectively. To me, it usually looks something like this.

Groups of people huddled together. Intense conversations going on. Nodding. Probing questions. A bit of wild gesticulating. Small bits of laughter here and there. And then there's me, being silent. I walk around, listen in, make the occasional suggestion, but the learning and teaching belong to them. I set up the structure and they take off within it.

That, to me, feels like a good day of teaching. And it's what happened today in my section. That, and at 5pm, the end of section, not a person budged from their conversations. That, my friends, is a very good sign.

Exhilaration and Exhaustion

Today I taught my second section of the week. It happened to be one in which I talked a LOT. Usually I listen. I facilitate. I keep us on task. I ask questions that push. But today I talked. We covered lots of stuff about NCLB. About the Supreme Court decision about race-based desegregation policies. I know that many myths were dismantled.

Towards the end of class, my throat started to hurt from talking so much. My voice was tired, by body was tired. Yet I realized soon after leaving that I was exhilarated. I love teaching in all shapes and forms, and it's wicked exciting to share information that then builds the knowledge base of others.

And right around the moment I realized I was exhausted and exhilarated all at once, the dear Mere called me. She was off to teach a workshop and was nervous. She asked if she'll ever not be nervous for such events. And luckily there I was in the perfect place to tell her that, yes, someday those nerves will gently shift into excitement. Because I see my teaching now as something exciting, a part of my week that I look forward to.

It's an important insight, really, as I look towards what kind of balance I'd like in my first post-grad job between research and teaching. That teaching gets my groove on. And I know Mere will get there too. Really, as much as she doesn't believe it. Wink.

Be well.

PS -- the two times I mention Mere are both linked to different things -- her biz and her blog. Check 'em both out! (Shameless plug).

The Ph.D'ing side of things

I don't know that I've written much about my doctoral work. It doesn't have the highs and lows that parenting does, nor does it include the joy of creating clear and useful products that knitting does. But it surely feeds my mind and soul in a very particular way.

Right now I'm in the midst of grading papers for the course I'm teaching. It's a course on school reform -- a subject near and dear to my heart. I'm struggling right now with the grading. Lots of folks have missed the main point of the paper. The writing is fine. The ideas are fine. Everything is fine. But missing the key component of the paper -- integrating that somehow into the argument, that's the problem. It's left me wondering if something is wrong with the assignment, which I created. Or with the teaching, which I'm only very partially responsible for. Or whether the point of the assignment is somehow out of vogue.

These questions, though I'm sure vague here, really cut to the heart of teaching and learning, which lights a fire in me. I love teaching. The weekly dialogue with students in person. The dialogue in writing as I respond to their writing. Engaging in enduring questions of school reform with others -- coming to conversations with just as many questions as they do and perhaps fewer answers now that I've spent many humbling years doing this work.

I find that doctoral work keeps me living in the realm of what I don't know. What I DO know, though, is that the everyday work of it -- the teaching, the grappling, the conversations with others, and in particular my students, are inspiring to me. And that will always keep me going.