Conversations with My Students #SOL18

Today, I found myself thinking about the random things I share with my students and what prompts the sharing. We’re on week five of the semester, so getting to know each other better. The attendance rate in two of my classes is horrible (seriously, so bad), but that means there are a handful of students who show up consistently and so we have the intimacy of a smaller class even if the roster is pretty full.

It was raining today, so I told my first class all about my one sock that kept falling down and that rain kept getting in my (ankle-high) boots.

Oh! So, one student recorded my lecture from Tuesday, which I didn’t know. (His accommodation allows him to, but I told him to still let me know in the future because [a] it’s creepy that I didn’t know and [b] I need to know if I’m being filmed so I can make sure I don’t say anything that could get me in trouble.) We had this exchange as a result.

Him: You told us not to write it down.
Me: I would never say such a thing.
Him: You did! Watch: it’s coming up.
Me: I wouldn’t tell you not to write something down.
Him: You did. You said, “Don’t write this down.”
Me: I refuse to believe.

The video gets to the spot, and you can hear me clearly saying “Don’t write this down.” Oh, and, of course, the whole class heard this exchange (including the video!) and laughed.

Of course, I know myself very well, so I remembered why I said not to write that particular thing down and explained. But I also said, “I don’t like this, you having receipts. It’s very unnerving.”

Then, in my 9:45 class, I told them all about falling down sock, the rain getting in my ankle boots, and why I didn’t wear my rain boots (I can’t teach in them). We somehow also wound up talking about how my daughter didn’t like big kids when she was little, teenagers when she was a little older, and then adults when she was a teenager. (To be fair, the adults thing was if it was a social event and no other teens would be present. Grown ups are boring, according to her. I could not argue against this point.)

Anyway, the most important conversation came after class today when a student told me my class is easy (!!!), and that he was scared of college before taking my class but he’s not anymore. Oh, and he loves blogging and thinks he’ll do it after class is over because it’s so fun.

Also, I just finished grading the first batch of summaries, and my students this semester did much, much better than my students last semester, which either means that they’re better students or that I did a better job teaching them the material. I’m going with the latter because I’m pretty sure it’s the truth.

So, yes. Today was a good teaching day.