My First Teaching Dream

In August, I begin teaching a class of 25 Introduction to College Writing Students.  While I'm nervous, mainly because I'm a sweater when I'm nervous (as in a person who sweats, not someone made out of wool), the idea of me sweating in front of everyone makes me even more nervous--maybe even more nervous than the thought of teaching.  Yes, I'm nervous about sweating in front of 25 people; I'm not nervous about what I am going to say to them.

But my anxiety isn't inhabiting my every thought, so I was surprised I had my first teaching dream last night.

I was in front of a huge lecture hall.  In real life, I won't be; I'll be in a small computer lab.  The room was dark, made of wood, had three groupings of seats, with two aisles.  On one side of the room was a chalkboard, on the other side, a whiteboard.  On the whiteboard side, there was a ladder.  I was supposed to climb the ladder to write on the whiteboard.  I am terrified of ladders; I am no good on them, so I chose the chalkboard side.  My theory has always been, the bigger they are, the harder they fall, and I am a fat girl.

The students all sat on the side of the room with the whiteboard, opposite of where I was standing.  I had my bag of stuff on a chair in the back of the room, and I kept going back to my bag for stuff.  I opened my iPad, where I have been keeping notes for class--a tentative plan for each day--and I realized it was Wednesday, and I had yet to take attendance.  In real life, I will be teaching on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It was then that I noticed one of my professors observing my class.  Since I had yet to take attendance, and I couldn't really figure out what the fuck I had planned for the day--my nerves made me forget everything, it seems--and I was worried about being observed and be caught not taking attendance, I made an attendance speech.  "I have not taken attendance for the past couple of days because I wanted to wait around until next week until things have settled down.  Ya know...people are moving from class to class, and there is just a lot of tumult."

It's then that I decided we should do some sort of activity--since we were being observed and all.  I can remember seeing some kind of clustermap--a way of generating ideas for writing--and somehow I was turning it into a group activity.   I started to write the instructions on the board and then I turned back to the class.  There were only about 11 students left.  Where the hell did everybody go, I wondered.  This isn't enough people for a group activity!

At this point, since everyone randomly disappeared since I wasn't taking attendance, I decided it was time for the mandatory attendance speech.  "I will take attendance everyday.  You need to be here on time and ready to work.  If you miss more than four classes, you will fail the course.  I am not afraid to fail anyone, and I will do it if I have to."  There were grumblings from the students and shouts of protest, and all of a sudden, the room was full again.  A student stepped up to a microphone in one of the aisles I hadn't noticed before and started to shout at me--I was unfair, I was incompetent.

All of the students were talking.  They were talking really, really loud in fact.  Everyone that has been to college knows that this is generally not the case for the first week.  People sit and are quiet, nervous.  And I was trying to talk over them, and it just didn't work.  Then, a group of head honchos--presumably the university president and some others came to my class.  They walked to the front of the room, and someone I knew was saying to one of the other men while gesturing to me, "Oh, she's great.  She's just going to be a great instructor."  Then the same man who complimented me looked down at my shoes, "What kind of shoes are you wearing?  Those aren't professional shoes.  You're wearing Crocs while teaching at a university?"

"No," I said.  "These are dress flats, but my feet are so big and wide and I have flat feet, so my feet make my shoes look like crocs."

And magically, it was the end of class.  Everyone was gone.  It was then I discovered there was a microphone on the podium, since the room was so large. Oh, I thought to myself,  they just couldn't hear me.  And as I approached the microphone, and messed with the volume, all I could get was feedback.

The next instructor, a new instructor, too, showed up for her class.  She was a beautiful black woman with an afro.  She was stylishly dressed, and as the clock hit 10:40, she began her class by grabbing a big microphone (one straight out of The Price is Right) from the middle of the stage, one that I had somehow missed while I was teaching.  She started her lesson plan, and her students were quiet, and then suddenly she began to sing the lesson and her students started cheering.  I thought to myself why didn't I find that microphone?