I have been away from my blog for good reason: since very late last year, I have been going through the process of getting hired to teach anthropology for a local community college! As of right now I am to teach a class on physical anthropology and another on cultural anthropology. I was surprised that they would give me two classes right off the bat. I suppose it is like finding out that someone is going to have twins: very exciting but also double the everything!
Update: Of course as soon as I publicly announce it, the situation changes. I will be teaching just cultural anthropology this semester, and possibly an online physical anthropology class later in the spring.
Since the week of Christmas, I have been busy designing two anthropology classes from scratch. The school has been great in giving me the freedom to pursue my own vision of the courses. I have so many ideas that I have had and keep having, and I want to do all of them. I am realizing that I may have to save activities and projects for next time, since I have to handle the usual logistics of organizing the class and teaching the subject matter. Sorry, probably no non-beer pong for these classes! Not that I’m going to just lecture for two and a half hours (times two) a week. On Twitter I have been posting snippets of the syllabus and first class material that I think depart from the norm, but with a purpose.
After every week, I plan on writing a post-mortem on what happened in each class and write down my ideas for next time. Post-mortem is such a dour word for this situation, though appropriate for the lecture on forensic anthropology. How about, reflection?
My classes start in ten days! I look forward to sharing my reflections.
Good luck dude! I had thought about writing a post-mortem series myself, but was deterred to find out that if the kids could google my name, then they could make judgements about my inner thoughts. I love your transparency, though! I wish I had had the resolve to speak out to the internet about my mishaps and good fortunes:) I do have a series planned for “What I have learned” type of thing now that I have a few semesters behind me.
Thank you! I considered the issue of privacy and getting my process hacked, but I think this way of reflection works for me. There will be no names and no put-downs, of course. Psychology studies suggest that the mental ‘tricks’ work regardless of whether people know what is going on or not, so I am comfortable going into the reasons I do what I do. I give a few of the reasons in class as well.
Also, a Googler of moderate skill can find me singing “You Were Meant For Me,” so that door has been open for a while. 😀