ZZZzzzZZzz, Class Three

So, in case you couldn’t tell from the title of my post, I did not enjoy Communication and Education. It kind of makes me sad because this is the same professor I have for my Tuesday night class and wow, I am really not excited about this class. I was trying to figure out what the difference was and here is what I came up with.

I was fortunate to run into a classmate that I had class with last semester and it turns out that she was in the class that night. Plus, one of my fellow grads from Monday night’s class was in this class too, so it was not that I didn’t have people I knew in this class. I think that it was the tone of the class that rubs me the wrong way. When the professor came in, Dr B. (Ironically, the other professor I have this semester would be Dr A. – so I have Dr A. and Dr B. with out making that up but I digress) had us move into a circle.

Which I guess is okay since there are only 15 or 16 of us in the class and it is set up as a seminar. But then she put on some crappy elevator music – no, that’s insulting elevator music – while the rest of the class was coming in.

Then, she kept asking these open ended questions about why we are taking this class and why we as a society require schooling through 12 grade. Then, she gives us a prompt that starts with, “When I was in school…” She gives us a little time to write and then has us pair off and tell the person next to use our tale, finishing it verbally if we didn’t have time to finish writing it. That was okay. But then she has us go around the entire circle and tell our stories and it turns into this string of, “this teacher changes my life or affected me in this way."


Bleh.

I think that I am not paying over $500.00 (Well, paying theoretically at least) a class for some sappy hippy circle jerk. Maybe a little harsh but come on! Yes, I have had teachers who have touched my life or taught me more than what is covered in the classroom. And we are suppose to be studying not only technique but also critical pedagogy. I guess I am not up for sitting around and playing, “isn’t teaching a noble and under recognized profession and aren’t we saints for wanting to be teachers ourselves.” And although I feel like I have to qualify everything I say, it is not that I don’t believe our teachers are important and that they are undervalued in American society. They are. I believe that teachers should be treated and paid like rock stars. Although I am sure they would appreciate it if the paparazzi left them alone.

I’m not interested in sitting around and feeling the issues around teaching, I want to learn about then and get active, figure out how the system works, what my role in it will be and how to navigate it.

(sigh) I don’t know. This was just the first class. I really, really hope that it gets better though. And oh yeah, I haven’t talked about the syllabi. I have some crappy, time consuming projects for this class. Let me just say that we have to teach a craft or activity to the class. I have chosen to go next week and make the woven heart basket that I learned to make years ago out of Cricket Magazine. It takes two colors of paper, scissors, stapler and a little patience. I can set up everything this weekend, I just don’t know where I will find 16 pairs of scissors. I hope that next week I might be able to borrow then from work. We do have a craft night. Oh yeah, you have to love college.