Teaching Big Kids

Students are students, no matter what age. The night before the first assignment was due (teaching a five-minute lesson to their peers) for my eight--yes, EIGHT only--grad students, three of them called me and two emailed, a couple a little panicked, others with just questions. I had a good chuckle over it. 

I am loving my job! My teaching experience at the college level is both new and strangely comfortable. I do have to think differently about the subject I taught for six years. I'm learning as I go what needs to be the most important things to present to these almost-teachers before they student teach next term and what they need to know in the spring before leaving for the real world. I have my great days and could-be-better days, but I can honestly say that there haven't been any bad days. Challenging, but not bad. There are times when I feel the weight of responsibility of my job more than other times--when I was teaching elementary kids, I didn't have TIME to think about that huge responsibility!

For this term, I am teaching one class, she said, a little embarrassed. They are allowing me to get my feet wet, meet lots of people, learn the system and other college-type things like what a dean does, etc. I'm also able to work on my syllabi for the other classes I will teach in the winter and spring terms, as well as some other responsibilities. The class is officially Middle Level Music Education, but it's more of an elementary music methods class. I am also including a classroom management portion since they don't get that anywhere else! Because I only have this one class this term, I am spending a lot of time on it and boy do my students get my feedback on assignments! I hope they see this as a positive thing. 

I find that the job allows me the time to be excellent at what I do. I can think ideal thoughts and dream of how we want the program to develop and think of better ways to teach teachers how to teach successfully in their own classrooms. Now, this is not to say that I think I am actually excellent at what I do (the more I know, the more I realize I know nothing!); it just gives me the time to strive for excellence. I do wonder often why in the world they thought I was the best candidate for the job, but I am definitely humbled and feel blessed to be doing what I am doing now. So, still learning.

Tea...who woulda thunk?

Katie likes tea. I know! "Is Katie the one actually writing this or did some tea-loving person hack into her blog account?" (My blog is read by such quality people that, yes, someone really would want to hack into it.) It's really me. No, Katie Coffee Hadley, has not given up coffee. I don't know if that really is something I want to do, especially since I enjoy it so much. But, the goal I have now in trying to like tea (and it looks like it is succeeding) is to cut back on my coffee intake. Now that I'm not teaching all day everyday (blog about my job coming in the next couple of days), apparently I feel I need to have a beverage of some sort available. And since it's cold here more than not, I usually want something warm. I think maybe that's why my coffee intake has increased from last year. 

So, I've ordered my tea-making starting kit and my nice friend, Tina, has been aiding me in my pursuit. She has given me some samples of her tea to try and the one I tried today, I liked! Pretty exciting. I hope to make this a habit. I will let you know if I fail, but I'm pretty determined not to.

Pictures...finally!

Well, as promised long ago, here are pictures of my condo and office at school.

Condo:

It's a stand-alone condo, so I don't hear anyone around me--just road noise, which isn't bad.

I have quite a large patio out front and a smaller one off of the kitchen.

As you walk in the front door, the living room opens up on the left. If you walk straight ahead, you'll walk into the dining room/kitchen.

Not pictured: the two bedrooms. As you walk through the living room, you reach the bathroom. If you don't go in the bathroom, there is a short hallway: my bedroom is off on the left; the spare room is straight ahead. Both decent sized rooms.

Office:

I'm on the third floor. I just hung pictures and am not completely happy yet, so those may change. Spent MANY hours painting--it was a blue-gray and was fairly dreary. And the department paid the bill for a piece of carpet--100% wool, so very nice.

Sorry the layout of the pictures is screwy--I still haven't figured out how to work this blog thing! I will also try to post more often on my blog, so hopefully at least every couple of weeks. Will write very soon about how school is going!

go beavs