Category: Teaching

1. I have a good memory for names and faces, yet I recognize 33% fewer people because of their masks. Conversely I’m almost positive that if my new students took off their masks, I couldn’t recognize half of them.
2. I teach four of my five classes with students attending virtually and in-person…simultaneously. It’s hard to develop any classroom rhythm.
3. Wearing a mask for five hours a day is significantly different than wearing a mask for thirty minutes a day.
4. The day-long mask becomes a veritable smorgasbord for the senses.
5. My students have been routinely gracious and flexible.
6. Take the regular push and pull of energy and enervation that accompanies classroom teaching. Then multiply it times one hundred.
7. Tech is fickle, so I will always bring a backup plan…and the phone number of our IT desk.
8. Logical validity flies over my students’ heads, but it flows over a lot of people’s heads.
9. The students who are here want to be here. The best ones want to learn while they’re at it.
10. This semester is going to be a marathon, not a sprint. Yet, I get the sense that we’re going remote before it’s all over. That means I better sprint while the sun’s out so I’ll have less road to travel once it goes down.

God remains good. All the time. I am glad to have a job, and I am glad that job is teaching.