First Official Seminar Day

Now listening to: The Who's "Who Are You?"
This is actually learning community related. Denise and I chose our title for the learning community class we'll do next semester. Our current one isn't truly indicative of what the class is, so we've changed to "Who Are You?" as the beginning of the title. The subtitle is yet to be determined, but the main title led us to talk about the song, so I played it, got it stuck in my head (not a bad thing) and then am now re-playing it as I blog.

First Seminar
I am so happy today was a seminar day. I had an awful discussion with someone yesterday about how much work I feel like I am doing, so it was nice to have a day where students really put forth good effort and truly appeared to learn something good.

The seminar that I observed had just 8 students in it because two were absent. It went really well. Technically, I am supposed to just sit back and watch them discuss without interferring with my "teacherly" presence. I've always found this hard to do. It wasn't as difficult today because the students were having a good discussion on their own and did not need me. In earlier times when I have "interfered" I realize that they needed to learn that they did not need me. At the same time, I think students should be able to look to the teacher for some guidance as needed. I guess this could get into a semantic discussion of when it is really needed; that's a tough call to make.

Anyway, I did decide to interrupt at one point. I feel like I ought to slap my hand and say, "bad, bad Nicole, don't interrupt students' discussion." The students were talking about something that had a point, but the point was getting further and further distanced from the text. The point that was being made is actually something we're going to discuss at length in later seminars, so it was good to see that students wanted to go there, but for the time being, I felt it prudent to redirect them to the text and the topic for today. I also felt the need to do this during seminar debriefing later in the day. I feel like some students see this as a teacher interruption while others are grateful for the redirection. Again, a tough call to make.

Also on the topic of interruptions-- this one does actually call for a "bad, bad Nicole" moment. I participated in discussion near the end of the seminar because I just wanted to so badly. It was an intrusion. Again, students didn't seem to mind. It is just so hard to stay out of it. This is something I will need to get used to. Denise was good; she admitted to wanting to talk several times but not doing it, so students could all have their say. I have this problem in general conversation with just about everybody. I so badly want to say what I want to say that I sometimes do it despite there being no real need for me to put my two cents in right then.

Teacher-conversations
I have noticed conversations among people who teach are really strange in their dynamics. Most of the time a more assertive teacher personality will dominate the conversation for a long chunk of time, at the end of which, the other teacher will kind of say, "Yeah, well, and put forth an opinion." Some of the times the opinion relates, but most often it responds to something that was said about half-way through the "conversation." What's really funny is to watch two strong-willed teachers talk to one another. It's not a real conversation. Instead, it is one person expounding his views for 2 minutes and then the next person expounding her views for 2 minutes and then when it goes back to the original person, he picks up where he left off and then so on and so forth. There's a real lack of connection of ideas. What's sad is it's these people who are leading discussions in class. I tend to think of it as the Oprah phenomenon. Ever notice how Oprah feels she is so much more interesting than her guests that she always feels the need to pipe up with her view of things or her experiences? I mean, she has a point; her name is the one on the show....but I rarely watch because I keep thinking, "Sheesh. Let the man or woman talk!" It is moments like these when I really feel I ought to slap my hand and say "bad, bad Nicole" because I know it's hipocritical of me to say that of Oprah when I do it in my classroom or in conversation. But I also remind myself that I'm not paid millions of dollars. It now becomes obvious that I even interrupt myself in order to get my other perspective in.

Before I have yet another conversation with myself here, I'll wrap it up. Suffice it to say...Seminar-- good. I look forward to doing them throughout the semester. I will attempt to sit further away from the students for the next one. Maybe that will help eliminate interruptions. I did enjoy what the students were saying about the text and am really pleased with their group dynamics. It makes me curious to read their papers.