Back

I just finished my first day of teaching and thought I'd post quickly while I have an internet connection.

I'm remembering how tiring teaching can be, but also how fun. It's not that I've been totally absent from teaching, but an every-other-week seminar for prospective teachers is very different from an actual math class, and I haven't taught one of those for almost two years. It was funny, though. I realized as I was walking from my car to the building where I would be teaching that facing a new class for the first time no longer makes me nervous. Maybe I haven't been nervous for a long time, but I never actually noticed that until now. Maybe the reason I notice it is that right now it's in contrast to everything else in my grad school life that, admittedly, hasn't been exactly rosy. No feeling sick about meeting with faculty, or guilty because I'm not doing all I should do, or bored sitting in three hours' worth of meetings. It's not that teaching's easy or stress-free, or that I've reached the pinacle of my ability. It's just that I can handle it, that I know I'm at least competent, and that in the end I find it unambiguously rewarding.

I have two classes this summer. One is an introduction to algebra class that meets for three hours, two days a week. The other is a math class for future elementary teachers that meets for two hours, three days a week. I felt like both classes got off to a decent start, with an expected bump or two along the way. This is sort of an interesting experience, because I feel like I think about teaching math differently than I did a couple years ago, and I also feel like actually doing it helps me think about teaching from the perspective of a graduate student/future researcher.

I've said this before, but the best part about teaching is always the students. After the first day, I'm already starting to see my students' personalities come out. My classes are small - 12 in the elementary class, something less than 20 in the algebra class (not everyone showed up and I don't know if the absentee students actually will), and I like that size a lot. It's a very different mix of students compared to U of M or BYU, or Osbourne Park High School. I like my students, and I like the mix. And it's also kind of fun to get chalk on my hands again and think through the math and try to figure out how my students will best understand it and relate to it. It's fun to get my students together working through problems and talking about math.

Really, I have nothing terribly profound or philosophical to say in this post - just that I missed teaching, and despite the inevitable frustrations and sore feet, it feels good to be back for a little while.