Gah. Well, I'm done, essentially, with this semester's teaching.

And I'm tired, and frustrated, and feeling irrelevant. Part of it is, I'm dealing with a particular individual who has declared lecture dead, and who wants to remake teaching in some new image - basically a bastardized version of the British model, where the students are expected to read on extensively on their own

( < mrs.krabappelvoice> Hah! < /mrs.krabappelvoice >)*

and not have 'regular' classes.

And I don't know - I do my best to have activities in class, and demonstrations, and ask questions (although that part's hard, and I tend to drop it after the fourth or fifth time of trying to get a discussion going and not getting it). But there's still a certain amount of factual information (ESPECIALLY in the sciences) that I just think is best conveyed by someone, say, drawing a diagram and explaining what's going on as they draw it. Or recounting field or laboratory experience.

(I am NOT a constructivist, you might have gathered. My little experiments in that direction have led me to believe that too many people will happily hang onto the wrong information they have, and twist the constructivism exercise to fit their preconceived notions...it's harder to teach someone who thinks they know something that's wrong, than to teach someone who doesn't think they know at all)

(*yes, perhaps I am being unnecessarily cynical. But after pleading with a class all semester to read the blessed lab exercise before coming to class, and STILL having people coming to class unprepared and spend the whole exercise asking me "what do I do now?" when there's a step-by-step protocol typed out for them, I think I have a right to be cynical).

So I don't know. Now I feel all irrelevant and stuff, and the old issues about my Being the Worst Bird in the Forest** come up, and I begin to wonder if I should chuck it and do something else with my life, except my skill-set is so limited that I don't know what I'd do.

(** from the old Russian proverb about the forest being awfully quiet if only the best birds sang. Which I've had people quote to me on a regular basis when I wail about how I'm not the best at whatever, and so I should just stop trying and give it up. But to me there's a difference between being Not The Best and being Well and Truly Awful, which is how I'm feeling right now.)

So, I don't know - does the fact that I don't have dancing ducks on my Powerpoint slides, or that I don't have people sit in a circle, or that I don't play games in class (well, most of the time. I have a few that are topic-appropriate and I use those. But I know some people who teach class like it's Jeopardy! all day, every day) mean I'm a bad teacher? When I was a student, my favorite classes were the organized ones - where you went in, and you took notes, and you heard about the prof's experience, and you got an idea of what the day-to-day life of a scientist was like. I would have been insulted if I had been handed a sponge and some toothpicks and told to make conceptual art to illustrate the day's topic or somesuch.

But to hear some people talk, that's what you're SUPPOSED to be doing, and anyone who talks to the class - and anyone who seems to admit to a power-dynamic where they're an authority - is hopelessly outdated and Prussian.

(And I don't know. I had Prussian ancestors. Maybe it's genetic and I can't change).

I don't mean to turn this into a teaching-blog, or a complaining-about-my-lack-of-skills-in-teaching blog, but I feel like - I feel like the world has changed too much since I was a student, and there's this giant gulf between what I expected at the time and what is expected now. And I don't know how to adapt.