Keep Your Eyes Open

I have learned that it is important to always keep my eyes and ears open when it comes to teaching as an adjunct. There have been countless times where I have been able to use some material I found, maybe an e-mail joke, for my class. There have always been times I have been able to find a way to tie-in what is happening in my day job to be teaching. This is always the best.

This past weekend we moved our office (for the main job). While packing things up, during the moving process and while getting things set up in the new office (still far from done), I think about how this can relate to my teaching. For example, one thing I like to do with my students, it actually works in fairly well with a lecture, is have them come up and play Whose Line Is It Anyway. One game I have them play is Props. This is the one where the characters (or in my case students) are given an object, usually one that no one has any idea for what it is supposed to used. They have to come up with usages for the item. Well, in the cleaning process, I found a few objects that I could not identify. Rather than throw them out, I stored them to use for the next time we play this game.

In getting the new office set up, switching the phones over gave us a little bit of a problem. Sometimes what should be an easy fix just never seems to go smoothly. That was the case with the phones, although the individual who was doing the work was very nice and very helpful. I can almost guarantee you that I will work this into a lecture. I will talk about needing to roll with the punches and even if things do not go smoothly, you have to find a way to get around the obstacles (as I did with the phones).

This is an important lesson to learn and I am sure that for the adjunct professor, there are numerous things that happen in day to day life, with the main job, that can work there way into a lecture. Do not try to avoid it. Rather, always look for a way to teach a lesson from it.