Finally! I met my class today, and I was really excited about starting the semester--like, crazy hyper excited, but I tried to keep cool and not be such a dork in front of my students. Of course, today was just a lot of introductory material, throwing it at them pretty fast so they can decide if they want to bail before the add/drop deadline. I couldn't get a vibe from them, though. They all looked a little stunned. Glazed over. I don't know what to make of it. I don't know if it was me or my syllabus or all the computers or what. Or maybe it was just 9:00 a.m. At any rate, not my typical first day, and I'm anxious to get back on Monday to see if anything has changed. Or if I've lost half my class.
When I was checking roll, one student told me her name was Mary. After class, she came up to me and told me that she prefers to go by Mary Kay. "I didn't tell you that when you asked," she said, "because I didn't expect that you would want to learn my name."
I'm glad she decided that I was interested in learning her name.
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I always hated the roll call on the first day of school because I would have to interject that I like to be called "Leann" and not "Sara" before they moved on to the next kid. It was like a race to make it...anxiety.
9AM would definitely explain the glazed over eyes!
The name-knowing thing is definitely a plus to teaching small comp or lit classes! It's one of those small things that really means something to our students (especially at our university).
Names are difficult, especially at my institution where there are a lot of international students. Luckily we have the benefit of being able to request a photo roster that gives a picture of every student. I surreptitiously keep it in front of me for the first two weeks of class.
And as much as I try, I think I always come across as a dork during the first . . . 15 weeks? Ok, so they always think I'm a dork. But they come to accept it.
Mine were glazed-over too. Also computer classroom. But then we had the two-classes-in-one thing going on, and I had to keep making jokes about information overload. At least we had the computers to break things up a bit! I was spoiled by my class last semester. They would have loved what I'm doing this semester. :P
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