My most exciting teaching moment, what is yours?
Posted on October 15, 2009
My most exciting teaching moment can be traced back to 1980 when I was working as a Tutorial Assistant under one Dr. Kadumula Khan who was teaching a course “Financial Management” to third year finalist Bachelor of Commerce students at the University of Dar es Salam.
It was mandatory for me, as a Tutorial Assistant, to attend all classes conducted by Dr. Khan and help him with cleaning the blackboard (by then there were no power point projectors and no white boards) and I had to conduct tutorials and seminars.
One day the Dean of the Faculty, Prof. Ken Edwards asked Dr. Khan to give me opportunity to give a lecturer on any one of my chosen topic from the syllabus. I found this to be quite challenging since I had never in my life time faced an audience of about 150 people, leave alone presenting an academic lecture. I chose a topic which was close to the last topics on the course outline so that I could have enough time to prepare myself.
When the great day came, my biggest surprise was that not only Dr. Khan, my mentor, was in the lecture hall, but also the Dean of the faculty. It had been widely publicized that I was the one presenting a lecture that day, hence the lecture hall was fully packed with students.
Although I had over-prepared myself for the lecture but as the lecture day came closer I felt less and less confident and nervous. At the beginning of my lecture students were unusually attentive and as I began introducing the topic the whole lecture hall was dead-silent such that even a drop of a pin could have been heard. This made me feel even more nervous. I started sweating, but fortunately I immediately gathered confidence and started the lecture.
I had prepared my lecturer to last one hour and I had rehearsed three times to test my self on the timing. To my big surprise at the end of the lecture, I got such a big applaud of appreciation from students which I never expected, particularly because students at University of Dar es Salam had a culture of booing at any presenter who sounded boring to them. I had made it!!
When we left the lecture room students surrounded me expressing their appreciation of my presentation, something that left sweat dripping all over my body. The Dean immediately invited me to his office and poured a lot of praises on me. He even offered me a cup of coffee - something a Tutorial Assistant could never expect from the Dean. I had to take the coffee, much as I was still sweating profusely.
After all this that is when I realized that I could also be a lecturer. The secret was that I had prepared myself adequately. Since that time I have always believed, and I think it is true, that good teaching is mostly a function of adequate preparation.
What is your most exciting teaching moment?
teaching
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mfrimpon says:
02/06/10 at 21:07:25
That was nice Erasmus. I am thinking subsequent ones were less stressful.
mfrimpon says:
02/08/10 at 02:27:12
My most exciting teaching experience was yes, unforgettable!
I was moonlighting at John Tyler Community college teaching Liberal mathematics. To a pure mathematician like me, that was nothing; the problems were invariably easy so there was no terror even on the very first day. Needless to say, what kind of student do you expect in a Liberal Mathematics class? They were not your regular student. The average age was about 30, but there were a few that skirted the fringes of retirement; like the woman who confessed that her son in high school usually helped with assignments. Some too were blue collar folk, and I vividly recollect one red-headed guy who usually came straight from the construction site with a cake of dirt on his boots. He owned the company that employed over 50 hands. Beat me while he would subject himself to such mathematical abuse after all the hours making sure the planks were nailed right, the scaffolding didn’t collapse and the concrete was well set among other things.
Every Wednesday after my regular job teaching statistics at Virginia Commonwealth University, I cranked up my Oldsmobile and joined the complaining masses that sailed southwards away from downtown to Chesterfield. Richmond is no Washington DC; there is traffic but it moves, but these people were always bemoaning the slow trip back home. As a Washingtonian who had done close-quarters combat on Woodrow Wilson Bridge I believed even God would not be amused if He heard me bellyache about this traffic nirvana.
Fourth week and fourth time to my Galamsey aka part time job, I set off like always. This day traffic snarled along the route and I was able to suck in the sights of this picturesque environs. As the minutes hand of the watch began to run faster than the speed of the traffic I began to panic a little. Fifteen minutes later my panic turned to terror; I was going to be late for the first time, and being late to this class (or any class) is a sin of Adamic proportions!
Mathematics is not the most popular subject and students always pray for calamities like earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes and “instructor absence” that would cause class to be postponed. Too bad snow is the only calamity that Richmond has been blessed with, and this usually does not fall in quantities to allow a day off!
A million things raced through my mind:
• How loudly are they going to boo if I did arrive before the session was over?
• Is there going to be anybody waiting if I did arrive before time was up?
• How do you cancel a once a week class?
Finally I did arrive. I was panting and sweating as if I had pushed instead of driven the car even as I dashed towards Room JTA 44. The corridor was eerily quiet; “surely everyone must be gone” I pondered. Who hangs around for a math’s class taught by an incompetent instructor that could come to class half an hour late?
Then I pushed the door open and my heart sank. Arrayed before me was the full complement of my students, and written on their faces was a demeanor that was hard to decipher. Then they burst into a cheer. Who and why were they cheering? Then they told me; they were rather afraid that I wasn’t going to show up!
I looked at the motley assemblage of “mathematics phobes” in front of me and knew exactly what to do; I was going to kiss every one of the 30 plus students including Jeff. Richmond is the cigarette capital of the world and Jeff epitomized a true Richmonder; he reeked of tobacco every centimeter of his body. On second thought I decided not to carry out this kissing threat. Maybe I was doing something right; and these guys really did like my style or something. But I still couldn’t fathom why I got cheered for that most egregious of sins.
Ever since, I have always felt goose pimples when I recollect the day I got cheered instead of booed for breaking a cardinal school rule.