Who am I?

In the best tradition of the internet, I'm not revealing personal data, however, I am a teacher at a small mid-western college. I say a teacher because I believe that is different from being a professor. A professor is a person who professes, which implies lecturing. Instead, I teach, which implies trying to be part of people learning, however that learning takes place.

It's an honor to be part of my college students' lives, on their way to becoming teachers; my students will be elementary teachers or music teachers. I try to model effective teaching, the kind of teaching I want my students to do, the kind of teaching that addresses the whole lives of students. I'm constantly tinkering with my courses, trying to figure out better ways to do things.

I find teaching to be infintely fascinating. I enjoy having conversations with people about teaching, particularly about lessons that were a challenge to teach and that worked! I like to set challenges for myself and my students and then work to reach those challenges, such as a performing arts project.

One of the things I am thinking about is the generation I am teaching now. While I do occasionally have older students (whom I really appreciate because they bring maturity and experience to my classroom), most of my students are between 18 and 21. In this age of accountability, these students have grown up with achievement tests and consequently, a lot of "teaching to the test." While my juniors and seniors don't show a lack of interest in their coursework, my younger students do. Particularly, when there is something where I have to do a little talking to share some information, I can see their eyes glaze over. Also, they really don't seem to like the Socratic method of my asking questions in an effort to get a discussion going.

So, my current quest is to think about ways of getting information across in the context of a mostly hands-on class (it's a class on the arts).