The spring semester began at my university last week, and this week I’m also beginning to teach my community college class. Professors are just as anxious and excited about a new semester as students! We don’t know what the class dynamic will be like. We want to know why students chose our classes. We get that most often it is because the class fit a student’s schedule. However, we hope that some come to the class because the course description intrigued them. Either way it’s our job to teach.
This semester I have more men in my classes, which is about women and madness, than ever. I’m excited because these men are as fully engaged as the women and both genders are already thinking carefully about the texts we are discussing. In addition to my university work, I’m teaching at a new community college, and having taken a year away from the community college I think I’m nervous. Teaching students of approximately the same age is quite different than working with adults with widely varying life experiences. I suppose it’ll be like riding a bike – there will be a few bumps and bruises, but I’ll remember how to pedal.
The thing students should hold on to is that each semesters is different, and even with every rating system out there their experience with a professor and a class is unique to them. We teachers prepare for each new semester and tweak and reshape class material during breaks. It’s a dance we do to make ourselves better, and we hope that you do the same process for yourselves between semesters.
