A conversation with N.A.

N.A. and I talk each night, either by cell or video iChat (and sometimes both...although not at the same time). I was just about to go to bed, when N.A. called.

He sounded frantic. Before he could get to the point, several worst-case scenarios went through my head:

1. A parent, sibling or pet was sick.

2. Students were protesting their recent grades by camping out on his lawn.

3. The election was included in some sort of government buyout plan, and Palin had been appointed Queen of the World!


Imagine my relief when he finally spilled it: "You wrote something bad on your blog! Go open it up!"

Intrigued, I fired up my laptop. I assumed I had mistyped a pseudonym, either revealing his name or my place of work. I scanned my most recent entries but found nothing amiss.

N.A.: Look at the top! In your tagline!

Me: I don't see anything wrong, NA.

N.A.: Your job? "Navigating a Visiting ass position"...?

Me: Um...yeah, I meant for it to say "ass".

N.A.: Oh. You did??? Why? It gives an image of-- of---

Me: Butt sex? It's an abbreviation for "assistant professor." It also pretty well sums up what most of the LargeU faculty thought I was doing: being a dumbass for taking a visiting position at a SLAC rather than a high-profile research postdoc position. You know, it's tongue in cheek.



N.A. paused. I thought he had accepted my answer. Then he very quietly said, "Please don't say tongue-in-cheek when we're talking about butts."

drawing a blank

Nothing pisses me off more than when a student leaves a question blank and then walks out of the exam room early.

Okay. So I'm exaggerating. There are many things that piss me off more than students giving up on test questions. Things like:

* War

* People that bite their nails in front of me

* Palin being accepted by (at least half of) the general public as a viable VP candidate

* Not being able to set recordings on my DVR more than a week in advance

* Pete Carroll

You get the idea.

Still. I find it very frustrating that a student would completely give up. I give very generous partial credit. It's not like this is an English test where they are sparing me a page of BS. Why turn in blank questions?? (and why do I care so much??)

Do I look like a priest to you?

I've survived my first month! My students (mostly) like me, but more importantly, they (mostly) respect me.

I like to maintain a certain line between the students and me. For example, they need to email me if they miss class due to an illness, but I don't need to hear about their 2 am vomit session. I will acknowledge that they are constantly juggling classes with extracurriculars/sports, but I don't want them to tell me about their awesome hookups/booze/hangovers.

My students (mostly) understand this, and so they refrain from dropping little overshare nuggets on me. But in the last week or so, students have been popping into my office and confessing their little academic transgressions.

It started with one student confessing that they overslept another class. Then another let me know that they put their homework off until the last minute. Another told me about how they blew off a class last semester for no reason. The next day a student told me they weren't returning their parents phone calls. (I told them to pick up their cells, pronto.) And most recently, an athlete confessed how they broke some team rules during team study hall.

Now I get that sometimes my lectures might veer into preachy territory. Don't we all preach the commandment "Thou shalt not bear electronic devices into my classroom"? What about the oft-quoted "Thou shalt complete all problem sets in a timely, legible fashion"?

But I don't wear a freakin' collar. I'm not their damn priest.

Yes, I recognize that these little confessions most likely indicate that my students are comfortable with me. At least that is what I'm hoping. Hmm....should I be giving out penance duties? Let's see... Five extra problems and thirty flashcards? One chapter of reading and three derivations? Hmmm...... oh, the possibilities are endless.

Open mouth, insert soap?

I have a filthy mouth. My current coworkers would never guess; thanks to years of practice watching my words because of little siblings, I have fantastic language filters.

My mom helped enforce the language in the house. "Crap" was off-limits. No way in hell could we say "dick." Any of the "real" four-letter words? Not if you valued your life. Even a "shut up" got us in trouble.

So I won't cuss in front of my students. But I find myself pausing when I say "crap" or "you're really screwed now." I always backtrack and insert another word.

But maybe I'm being overly cautious? I wonder if my students even blink at "crap" any more? Somehow I think not.

In case you were wondering....

...running a microwave, night light, small heater, AND coffee pot off one wall of outlets is not a good idea. (Sometimes I'm surprised I have a Ph.D., although I will fully blame this circuit overload on my flu.)

On the plus side, (after bundling up and wandering into several cobwebs in the basement) I now know where my house's circuit breaker is located.

The upside to a cold

I'm lying on the couch, watching Rachel Zoe (I *know*! I am so sick!!), waiting for the sweet, sweet nectar that is cherry Nyquil to course through my veins.

The only upside to picking up the Freshmen Plague (with NA many states away and not here to listen to my whining...although video iChat is surprisingly effective) is that I get to chase tonight's Nyquil shooter with a little Dayquil in the a.m.

Mmmmmm.....Day... Quil...

Group work: good AND germy

As you might have seen, I recently blogged about group work. My students continue to love it. The only problem, I've realized, is that my group work exercises require quite a bit of touching.

I'm not talking about forcing my students to poke one another. I just mean that they are constantly passing papers to one another or manipulating molecular modeling kit parts. I even caught one student using their teeth to pull apart some bonds-- and it wasn't their own model kit!

As I go around to the various groups, I often have to manipulate their models, point to something on their papers, or, worst of all, have to use their pen/pencil to demonstrate something on paper.

Now I can't very well Lysol down my students when they enter my classroom (but oh, wouldn't that be wonderful?), but it's quite challenging to avoid touching my eyes/mouth/nose (without washing my hands first) since I teach for several hours in a row.

Should I resign myself to their germs?

Doctor, Doctor

I'm well aware that there are undergrad institutions where it is the norm to call professors by their first names. In graduate school, I rarely called the professors I worked with Dr. Collaborator.

However, here at TempCollege, students only call professors Dr. Whatever or Prof. Whatever. My students call me Dr. Reaction or Prof. Reaction. I'll even respond to Dr. R.

Occasionally, a student will slip up and call me Mrs. Reaction. It makes me bristle. I don't show it on my face, but I do always make sure I pointedly correct the student.

My reaction surprises me. When I was in college, I always thought it a bit over-sensitive when my professors corrected a student when they misspoke the title. Who cares, I thought. The rest of us knew the prof was a PhD.

So why do I insist that they call me Dr.? It's not because I need daily reminders that I suffered through almost five years of school for it. I guess I feel like students can convey their respect for me by using my proper title. It helps maintain a certain line.

Think I'm overreacting? Perhaps. But then again, what would you do if a student started an email with a Howdy Unbalanced?

Toto, I don't think we're in grad school anymore!

Each day I get called "Dr" or "Prof" at least 40 times, either in person or by email. I'm in charge of 65 students for six hours of lecture a week and another 25 students for four-hour, weekly labs. I vote in faculty meetings. I attend faculty happy hours.

Still, once I'm finally alone in my office (this happens for maybe 20 minutes a day during "working" hours), I pause, look out the window, and silently sigh, "I can't believe I'm actually a professor!"

It's not that I feel like I'm not capable. Or that I'm not doing a good job. Or that I'm not 100% deserving of my job. I just feel completely bewildered (for those 20 minutes) that I actually did it: I finally got the degree and am someone else's professor.

It's gettin' hot in here...

When I teach, I've barely opened my mouth, and I can already feel the flush on my cheeks. Thirty-five pairs of eyes follow my lips-- no doubt seeing the sweat start to glisten on my upper lip and forehead. My armpits are sticky.


No, I'm not nervous.


My classroom is 84 degrees. I know this because someone nailed a thermometer next to the thermostat. The thermostat which is, obviously, not connected to an air conditioner.*

84 fucking degrees, with the windows open AND a box fan. Never thought I'd say this, but I can't wait for winter.



*Please note that the thermometer is right next to the door to the hall. The hall that is at least 10 degrees cooler. Therefore, I'm going to conservatively estimate that the classroom is another five degrees warmer. If I wanted to teach in the upper 80s, I'd head back to LargeUtown and teach my class outside.

Group work: good, bad, or just ugly?

I hate hate hated group work when I was a student. I would have rather had a solid hour of chalk-talk than have to clink desks with three of my classmates in order to work through some worksheet. However, in my own teaching, I like to pepper my chalk-talking with powerpoints, group discussion, and group work.

At LargeU, I was encouraged to incorporate group work as part of the four lectures a week. My students were wary of how effective groupwork would be, and a handful were openly hostile about having to give up valuable rote-memorization time in order to engage in thoughtful discussion with their fellow classmates. I was able to incorporate some group work into most class meetings, and I was surprised to see that students (mostly) responded favorably to it. On the end of the semester evaluation, dozens of students cited the in-class group work as the most helpful part of the class-- second to my brilliant lectures, I'm sure.

So starting here at TempCollege, I knew that the students would benefit greatly from my group work activities. I anticipated their hesitation. I called them out on their eye rolls before they even blinked. I passed out the pre-semester surveys (including my standard question: "how do you feel about group work?") with a disclaimer that I fully expected some apprehension about group work.

Imagine my surprise when 60ish surveys were returned to me, their pages brimming with positive statements about the value of working with others, as well as a few cautionary tales about how sometimes one person ends up doing the work for everyone else. Nearly all of my students have not only done (and loved group work) but have done group work in every single class in high school.

So is this just a regional thing, or has group work suddenly become the go-to teaching mechanism at high schools (and colleges)?