a better day in class

I'm feeling much more optimistic about the class I'm teaching this week. I think the long weekend, combined with a new play, really helped us regain focus. Plus, I learned that one of the students in my class speaks "a little Norwegian"! She helped me discover today how poorly I had been pronounced "Ejlert Lovborg."

After class, a student boosted my ego by requesting a letter of recommendation. She told me that she wanted me to write the letter because, although she was shy, she had participated more in my class than in anyone else's. While I know this is 99.99% her own doing, I like to think that that extra .01% is my influence, and that I have somehow cultivated an environment in which she feels comfortable talking. If true, this would mean a lot to me, since I was definitely one of those quiet, shy students myself as an undergraduate. I always appreciated the professors who would create opportunities for me to speak, whether they proposed activities that helped me prepare my thoughts or divided us into smaller groups in which speaking was easier. The more I think about it, the more I realize that creating a classroom in which quiet students feel empowered to speak is a major component of my teaching philosophy. (This is good to tuck away; I will need to have a written statement of my pedagogical philosophy eventually!)