What a day

Just had one of my worst teaching days ever. I've had bad days before, but this one seems especially bad... probably because it went bad right from the beginning, and the class was 2 1/2 hours long.

I wasn't really enthusiastic about the material, but I found an interesting angle for approaching it and was trying to connect it to the writing that we've already studied. I figured out it was going to go bad about twenty minutes in, when after the announcements, my bio blurb about the poet and the first read through of the poem, the first comment was so off base that it was almost ridiculous.

Even though I indicated the poem was more complex than the comment allowed, several other students jumped at the interpretation and insisted upon it, no matter how many times I pointed out that there wasn't anything in the poem to support such an interpretation. No matter how many times I'd ask a student to point out the line in the poem that clearly states their claim that the poem was about a single subject, not the plural subject that it is about, they insisted upon reading it as a poem about how every reader has their own unique interpretation of the poem.

NO! It's not about the reader! I wanted to scream. But I kept calm. I finally got them to understand that the poem meant something else than what they were obsessed with, and we moved to the next poem. They were still having difficulty, but I was starting to get through to them. I announced we'd turn to the third poem, which should have nailed it for them and put everything back on track, when a student - one who I wouldn't have imagined would be worried about it - asked about the midterm.

In the course of answering questions and indicating that the exam would cover all the assigned material, not just what we specifically went over in class, eye-roller asked "then what's the point of coming to class?" to which I answered that the midterm was only worth 10% of her mark and she might want to learn something in order to fulfill the other assignments in the course. (I knew better than to appeal to her desire to be better educated or just learn something for the joy of learning itself- she's actively counting the minutes till the course is over)

Another student, sensing the inanity of the questions, asked whether the staples would be straight up and down or at an angle on the exam, which of course lightened things up, but by then I was so annoyed, I was having a real difficulty getting back on track.

We took a break, and when we returned I mostly had it together, but I ended up just lecturing at them mostly because I just didn't have the energy or desire to let them talk.

I think students learn best when they talk - when they're challenged with questions and have to find the answers themselves instead of just having it handed to them, but it's harder as a teacher to do so because so often they end up with some really weird stuff that you have to respectfully debunk while pointing them in the right direction.

But maybe I need to lecture more and guide less.

It's not my style, but I can certainly give it a try.

I hope I feel better about it in the morning.