Derailed

My very first teacher dream was of utter unpreparedness. During the summer I showed up at the school that had just hired me wearing some attire reminiscent of lazy college afternoons. I had expected to set up my classroom, but instead entered a room brimmed with students. "Teach us," they said, "We're ready to learn." Learn? Learn what? I had no syllabus; I had no game plan.

This dream—or variations thereof—has been the most frequently recurring since I began teaching over three years ago. (Yes, I still have teacher dreams over the summer and on long breaks. My boss, who has been on this side of the desk for over three decades, confessed to me that he still suffers from teacher dreams as well.)

Today my teacher dream was realized. I was, of course, prepared and expecting to teach students today. In fact, I was overprepared. All of our course documents, calendars, and readings are posted on Blackboard; I had intended to make our course entirely paperless. Murphy, however, had other plans. Blackboard didn't work. I had no syllabus; my game plan was shot. I moved onto Plan B—I attempted to bring up the vital documents from my USB stick—but neither MS Word nor Adobe would run without crashing. I began to sweat as eleven physics and comp sci majors watched this twentysomething "professor" (or is she a TA?) struggle to operate a PC. I eventually moved onto Plan C: the students began their diagnostic essay—I read the assignment aloud—while I jumped from computer to computer until I found one willing to cooperate with my USB stick. And then I printed copies of the syllabus and collated and stapled them.

The rest of the session went fine, but I regret this unfavorable first impression my students now have of me. I keep flashing back to my fall students' comments on their evaluations: many stated that the course was well structured and the instructor well organized. But my new students don't know that! A bad day in the middle of the semester is just an off day; a bad day to begin the semester sets an expectation of incompetence. Blech.

Let's hope tomorrow goes better. (I have hard copies, just in case.)