After the First Time Around

Sheesh. I'm teaching precalculus for the 2nd year at my current school, and it just never ceases to amaze me the difference between how I deliver the material the 1st time and subsequent times. For example, last year after teaching the trigonometry topics, I could see that I wasn't as successful as I wanted to be. I (people?) don't know the types of issues the kids will get hung up on or what they'll find more confusing than you think it should be. Then time rushes on and you have to move on to a new topic, and there it is. ... Then the next time around when you teach it and you look at your notes from last year and you read, "they DID NOT get this" , or "they had troubles with this aspect", or "make sure you try that idea you read about on ...", and then you try it out, and wham! they get it! they really get it! ... I love when that happens.

So .... in a sense, I'm a wee bit sorry for my calculus students this year, because I'm sure I'll have a much better grasp of how much to stress certain things and how to approach other things, and how much time to spend on yet other things NEXT YEAR. Ce la vie (sp?).

On a yoga note: I used to teach aerobics, and sometimes you'd get subs and sometimes you'd be a sub, and I really disliked when people were all set in their ways and crabby because they had a sub, and I'd think, "get over it and try something new for one week". Well. We had a sub last week for "Hatha Flow". Now the flow classes I've been to have been more physically challenging than the regular hatha classes, and yes the sweat was flowing and yes after a while you're all whiny and thinking it's hard and it's hard to do the tree pose when your sweaty self is all slippery, BUT. Then you're all pleased with yourself because you've persevered (sp?) through something challenging. So. Our sub was more of the "hatha" variety last week during the "flow" class, and look at me getting all "ew. sub" on her. Blach on me.

On a yoga/teaching note: so then I think that as much as the students at school may whine about something being hard, I think that we have to stand our ground and say to them, "yes it's hard, but that doesn't mean you can't do it" because if they step up to the plate and push through and do it, they'll be proud of themselves. So. Note to self. Don't make things too easy because where's the fun in that?