fail / fail

The orientation sessions for this fall's freshmen have been taking place over the past few weeks. Yesterday and today was the session for the program I teach in, which meant a couple of one-off events for me and colleagues. Yesterday was an introduction to the learning community event, which meant Jason, Pam, and I had 45 minutes to create some kind of worthwhile activity for students. At the suggestion of our other colleagues (who weren't there to guide us), we ended up with a community-building exercise involving tarps (yes, tarps), which our colleagues assured us would take about 30 minutes. Turns out, the activity took about 10 minutes. And we had no back-up. It ended up being an almost complete waste of time, and, worse yet, I feel like it damages our credibility as organized, thoughtful teachers.

Then, this morning, April had asked me to make a presentation about Summit 09 and tips for academic success to the entire group of students in the program, and their parents (100-150 people total) She gave me her powerpoint presentation to start from, and I cut it down to 20 minutes or so. I practiced a couple of times, but this morning was still rough--I was trying to cram too much into the time, and I didn't move around enough, and I hate using a microphone.

On the bright side, most of them will probably forget everything I said, and the crappy presentation, and the waste of 45 minutes, and me, by the time they come back in August. That's one way to keep things in perspective, I guess.