Thoughts on teaching...

Last week I spent most of it trying to figure out what I will be teaching as most things here things happen slowly, but I am getting used to it. Initially I thought I was teaching MS Access and stuff like that, but now it turns out I am teaching C programming to non-computer major students. So I had to change my slides and had to find out the schedule, which I had to rearrange because I have 150 students! I changed it from 2 hours of teaching a week to 8 hours of teaching a week (4 periods vs 1). I hope that will be more manageable as the computer lab is limited in space. They do not break things up into sections here they just have a class and have 3-4 people share a computer, so I made sure that at least in my class they will only have 2 people sharing at most. The funny part is that I am supposed to start teaching this week, yet I had no idea of what I was teaching or of the schedule till last week (most of them didn't have a clue to the schedule either). And I love the name time table master..sounds like something out of a sci-fi novel..basically they are the teachers in charge of making the schedule for the coming semester. My goal is to become time table master for next semester as you know me and my love of making schedules! Here at the institute it is definitely different than college in the States where everything is planned out beforehand. And the schedule can still change till the 2nd week of class!

My goal is to be a tough teacher by giving them lots of homework and quizzes, but at the same time I think tough will help them because in the end I hope that they will pass the final exam. And I hope they will get good jobs..they may hate me during the semester but they will thank me at the end. Can you imagine me being tough? I sure can and if you know me well enough you could too. :)

A word on optimism. Talking to another teacher they told me that the new computer lab (50 students can fit in at a time) should be ready by the beginning of the semester, I told them I don't think so (knowing how things here and elsewhere, like the USA, work). They told me to be optimistic, I told them I am realistic. :) If you think of it if you become too optimistic than you will be pessimistic later in life because nothing will happen on time, it is better to be realistic..a nice middle ground. Of course I didn't explain all of that to them. And right now I am pleasantly surprised the computer lab is not quite ready but I think it should be ready in less than a month which is less time than I was realistically expecting..alright MIST! Unlike schools in the States where they get discounts for computer equipment, here in TZ the vendors charge more to schools and govt because they know they can get their business. I think that really sucks but oh well..such is life.

Can you tell I am excited to teach? This has been a huge research project for me trying to plan out how I am going to execute the topics, come up with programming assignments, and the schedule. Totally my niche as I feel so creative now.