Tuesday, October 02, 2007
I am a teaching assistant for a modern physics class, which for some unfathomable reason is required for liberal arts students in the honors track at my large state school university. My students hate taking my class, and for my part I do everything I can to lessen their pain. Every discussion section, I put on a smile, hop around in front of the blackboard excitedly, and try to get my students interested in the material. My students typically respond with bored looks and blank stares, and I don't blame them, since physics is not their major. For me, teaching is a juggling act between clarifying/filling in details from the professor's lecture, and telling enough jokes to keep my students from falling asleep.
One Tuesday night, as I was preparing for my discussion section the next day, I got a call telling me my grandmother had died. She had been important to me, and I couldn't sleep that night, thinking of her and doodling half-heartedly on my lecture notes. I staggered into discussion section the next day and was greeted by the same apathetic look on my students faces as usual. I was shattered inside, but for all you could tell my students wanted to be there even less than I did.
I thought about Dr. G, one of my math professors from back in undergrad. One lecture, he had shown up looking more tired than usual, saying "I apologize if I'm a little off today, my mother died this morning". He went on to give the same dry but meticulously coherent lecture on chaotic dynamical systems as he always did. The guy never even made a mistake on the chalkboard.
So I put on a smile, said hello to my students, and launched into another lecture. I solved quantum mechanics problems on the board, and I told funny stories when I saw my students starting to nod off. At the end of that semester, I didn't really get any thanks from my students, just as I never thanked Dr. G, or ever even introduced myself to him in a one-on-one conversation. But now, maybe, I understand a little what it was like for him.
One Tuesday night, as I was preparing for my discussion section the next day, I got a call telling me my grandmother had died. She had been important to me, and I couldn't sleep that night, thinking of her and doodling half-heartedly on my lecture notes. I staggered into discussion section the next day and was greeted by the same apathetic look on my students faces as usual. I was shattered inside, but for all you could tell my students wanted to be there even less than I did.
I thought about Dr. G, one of my math professors from back in undergrad. One lecture, he had shown up looking more tired than usual, saying "I apologize if I'm a little off today, my mother died this morning". He went on to give the same dry but meticulously coherent lecture on chaotic dynamical systems as he always did. The guy never even made a mistake on the chalkboard.
So I put on a smile, said hello to my students, and launched into another lecture. I solved quantum mechanics problems on the board, and I told funny stories when I saw my students starting to nod off. At the end of that semester, I didn't really get any thanks from my students, just as I never thanked Dr. G, or ever even introduced myself to him in a one-on-one conversation. But now, maybe, I understand a little what it was like for him.
