Whatever you do in a classroom, make it matter. Make it count.
You’re a teacher in a mom‘n pop shop called a department serving
paying customers. The product is course content.
• Do not be afraid of being fascinating and energetic.
• Do not be
afraid of going outside your comfort zone to make a point.
• Do not be afraid of
occasionally being silly or foolish if it makes the point you want.
• If
you're not energetic by nature, then find ways not to be dull.
You must do this or you should rethink your career choice.
Keep telling yourself that it is the 21st century, not the 20th. Colleges and universities were very different just 15 or 20 years ago. So was education. Fifteen years ago it was 1998. Twenty years ago it was 1993. Look up all the technology and teaching ideas that did not exist then.
Wear ruby slippers to class so that occasionally you can tap the heels together to get out of the past.
Most of the techniques and methods that often worked “then” just absolutely do not work “now.” Today we do not teach a lot about gathering information. Today we teach how to think about and analyze that information and what to do with that information. Critical thinking, problem analysis, skills training, always concentrating on the why rather than the what. That’s the core of what we do.
What counts is that your teaching matters. What matters is that your teaching counts.
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