Some respect, c/o The Teachers:
All of you former students: you did not design curricula, plan lessons, attend faculty meetings, assess papers, design rubrics, create exams, prepare report cards, and monitor attendance. You did not tutor students, review rough drafts, and create study questions. You did not assign homework. You did not write daily lesson objectives on the white board. You did not write poems of the week on the white board. You did not write homework on the white board. You did not learn to write legibly on the white board while simultaneously making sure that none of your students threw a chair out a window.
You did not design lessons that succeeded. You did not design lessons that failed.
My favorite teaching moment from last week:
In both of the research methods classes I am teaching this semester, we are operationalizing variables, a phrase I have trouble saying out loud properly because I get nervous sometimes while teaching and seriously, operationalizing is a crazy word to try and say. Basically when operationalizing a variable, we indicate how we define the variable and identify indicators so it can be tested or measured. I put social conformity on the board and asked the class to operationalize it. From the corner of the room a student yelled out:
Bravo. Brilliant! And for good measure, a friend recently gave me this shirt. ❤ Super-psyched to be teaching this semester!
Karen Zgoda, LMSW 