Christina, the Entertainer

Ever feel like you're in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, standing in front of a dead classroom? Your voice echoes, "Anyone? Anyone?" as students roll their eyes or text message. It's a lonely existence, made worse by twenty pairs of eyes staring back at you. The fishbowl effect, as I've heard it called, is created when those twenty pairs of unblinking eyes realize you've just asked a question and wait patiently for an answer, like fish waiting to be fed.

My professor in my teaching theory class says that I should just be patient. "Wait them out. They'll say something. Count to thirty." Let me just say that yes, it does work, but the time spent counting with a lame grin on my face was uncomfortable (to say the least). I will persevere in this line of question-asking, and try to give them room to think and realize that participating is possible and rewarding, allowing them to voice their opinions and to disagree. Still, I wondered, isn't there something else I can do to increase participation?

Being a mentor concurrently with teaching my first class, I had a brainstorm about my mentees and why they are so willing to participate. I had been required to meet with each of them individually and, though we talked about writing, we mostly talked about life and relationships. When the instructor asks a question, they look at me and I smile a little smile at them and (I assume) they feel like someone has acknowledged their existence and they speak out.

I'm not sure how this is going to play out, but I have asked all of my own students in the class I'm teaching to meet with me in the next week or two. I even sent out a virtual sign up sheet for tomorrow before class, and I'll send out a paper sign up on Thursday. Having just completed twenty-four intake interviews as a mentor, I know that they are draining, so I'm steeling myself against fatigue. Still, I hope the benefits will reap more class participation and a greater ease in my presence. I hope they take charge of their time, ask questions, contribute their thoughts, and get excited about owning their education.

I have considered, of course, that being a mentor and being a teacher are completely different roles--whereas one is a liason between teacher and student, ultimately earning the title "student advocate," the other is very obviously controlling the destiny (in terms of a grade) of the student, which can really seem overwhelming...or, am I just projecting how I felt about my teachers when I was an undergrad? How do I create rapport without stepping over the line?

I will shake my magic eight ball and find the answer..."better not to tell you now," it says.

One Week Down

Thank goodness for diagnostic essays, which I read in the span of seven straight hours on Thursday night. Aside from the stress of 1. having only received all twenty on Thursday at noon, and 2. the looming deadline over my head of assessing which students were in the wrong class or in need of a lab, the essays really did give me a sense of writing capabilities, style, and register issues.

I chose the subject of advice, which is very much like a personal essay because nineteen of my students just graduated from high school. Though I may have missed out on gauging reading comprehension, the students seemed relaxed enough to show a little of their personalities. Some were actually enjoyable to read, especially the one entitled "I plan to graduate sober and without an STD."

During classtime, and because I really want to create an atmosphere of relaxed encouragement (perhaps I'm being too much of a hippie here), I had the students get into groups of twos and present each side of an argument. My topics included

• Chris Brown & Rhianna: will he beat her again?
• Michael Jackson: king of pop or pedophile we're better off forgetting?
• Iraq: should we stay or should we go?
• Health Care: burden of the state or of the people?

I asked the students to add any arguments the couples had left out and tried to highlight how their examples made ideas seem clearer. Then I showed the Sinead O'Connor video of her ripping up a picture of the pope and dismissed class.

I'm going to show the follow up concert at the beginning of Tuesday's class--the one of Sinead at the Bob Dylan anniversary concert where she's booed off the stage. I'm hoping that Tuesday will be ripe with questions about the performance so I can talk about rhetoric (which I love to talk about) along with getting in a few points about registers, implicit arguments, etc...

In all, I am enjoying the experience of teaching, though I often have moments of doubt and wonder if I'm 'doing this right,' but my heart is definitely into learning through teaching.

On another note, I have made time to write and found that whereas before my schedule was completely jammed with crap and I needed a few hours before I would even attempt to try to think about writing, I just take my half hour windows and do it. We'll see how that pans out...

My First Day

You know the feeling you get when you’re so nervous, it seems like your stomach is actually twisting in upon itself? That’s the feeling I woke up with at six this morning. And I hate being nervous. Part of the reason I’ve never cheated on my husband is because of that very fact: I like predictability. A room full of strangers is the antithesis of control.

“But Christina,” I say to myself, “you’ve closed million dollar deals and once had a job as a tour guide for an entire summer. This is nothing. These are just eighteen year-olds who are probably more nervous than you about being called upon. It’s their first day of college. You’ve got experience--expertise, even. AND, you’re their teacher, which means you have the power.”

Right, I have the power. Why isn’t this churning going away then? All I really have to do today is go over the syllabus and assign a required diagnostic essay to find out if everyone in class speaks English fluently enough to discuss the following: Discuss the advice people have given you for your first day of college. What advice will you probably take and why? What will you discard and why? Write a 600-800 word double spaced essay and hand in Thursday.

I got this. Or, I’ll have this. Maybe a little yoga will help...

The Beginning

That’s me, on the left, New Year’s Eve, 2009. It was literally days after I had heard that my business and my partnership were essentially over. I don’t want to go into the details right now, except to say that I felt betrayed; that I had wasted six years of my life on someone else’s dream.

I know what you’re thinking, “but it’s September. Why are you dwelling on something that happened eight months ago?”

Because that was the beginning, and the beginning is where all stories must start. Anyway, I put all my energy into going back to school and getting my Master’s degree in creative writing. AND I decided that the only way I could make a living at this writing thing would be to teach.

Over the summer, I was hired to mentor 23 English 100 students and just last Friday, I got a job teaching 20 students English 1100! “Lucky you,” you might be thinking, but I’m also taking three other classes, and wondering how I’m going to have the time to do everything well.

One of those classes, “Theory and Practice of Teaching Composition,” is all about how to teach. So, I’m thinking about teaching and about to start practicing the daunting art of holding the attention of forty-three eighteen year-olds.

Hopefully, while I’m chewing gum and walking at the same time, I’ll also have time to write (which is the point of it all). So, here it is: my experiment in living, giving, and hoping to have the time to exhale and enjoy the ride.