I had to teach my first class as a TA last week. The prof. was away to some conference and he told me to take the class and of course told me what was I supposed to teach. I was to solve a couple of numericals and teach them some basic fundamentals chemical thermodynamics. The numericals were pretty straight forward, defining a system boundary and determining flow rates.
The night before I was a bit nervous, understandably, coz for one my oratory skills are not something I am very proud of (at times they have been appalling) and two the class strength is about 112. I am sure even a reasonably good orator would be bit nervous if he had to talk to a large audience like this. Luckily for me, it was an early morning class and more than half the students would decide to skip the class so once that part was out of the way and given the fact that subject matter was fairly simple I was gaining confidence. I walked into the class early with a customary coffee cup and The Daily Targum (Rutger's newspaper) with the comic's page open. The liquid kid classics was really funny, I remember (for the uneducated, liquid kid classics is one of the comic strip popular in Rutgers and it's dark humor at its very best). I took the seat by the front desk, for the first time on the other side of it and waited for my students to walk in. I think it was the chair, the feeling of responsibility as a teacher (though very irrelevant in this case), the student who walked up to me and asked a doubt before the class, the maintenance guy who arranged for the visual aid equipments for me (though I did not need one, I used the chalk board), the whole feeling of being on the other side of the front desk that made it all seem so easy now. I wasn't worried or nervous a bit. I just went about the lecture as if it were the most natural thing for me to do. I tried a few things like getting the students involved, make them laugh, at times it worked, other times it didn't. Over all I felt nice about it.
I want to teach in a school sometime and now I am more certain I will do it.
The night before I was a bit nervous, understandably, coz for one my oratory skills are not something I am very proud of (at times they have been appalling) and two the class strength is about 112. I am sure even a reasonably good orator would be bit nervous if he had to talk to a large audience like this. Luckily for me, it was an early morning class and more than half the students would decide to skip the class so once that part was out of the way and given the fact that subject matter was fairly simple I was gaining confidence. I walked into the class early with a customary coffee cup and The Daily Targum (Rutger's newspaper) with the comic's page open. The liquid kid classics was really funny, I remember (for the uneducated, liquid kid classics is one of the comic strip popular in Rutgers and it's dark humor at its very best). I took the seat by the front desk, for the first time on the other side of it and waited for my students to walk in. I think it was the chair, the feeling of responsibility as a teacher (though very irrelevant in this case), the student who walked up to me and asked a doubt before the class, the maintenance guy who arranged for the visual aid equipments for me (though I did not need one, I used the chalk board), the whole feeling of being on the other side of the front desk that made it all seem so easy now. I wasn't worried or nervous a bit. I just went about the lecture as if it were the most natural thing for me to do. I tried a few things like getting the students involved, make them laugh, at times it worked, other times it didn't. Over all I felt nice about it.
I want to teach in a school sometime and now I am more certain I will do it.
2 comments:
Hey Anshul,
Maggu here. Dropped by from Sarda's website. Your blog is surprisingly non-geekier than I would have imagined! Nice writing. And when did you become chemical engineer? Last I remember you were in elec at IITM, though don't know what are you upto now. Neway, see ya!
Maggu/Ashish
hey maggu, thanks for dropping by. I dont know how you got the impression of me being a chemical engineer, I am working in the cognitive sciences, human vision and perception :).
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