sustaining a quality education ~ with Brian Goedde ~
Talking with My Hands
After eight years of teaching, I’ve pretty much settled my “teaching persona.” I dress a little nicer than my students usually do, but not that much nicer: I tuck in a button-down shirt and wear “office-casual” leather shoes. I always stand in front of the blackboard, and at least once every class I wander to the sides and back; a musician once told me the more captivating performers “use the whole stage,” and I’ve tried to take this advice into the classroom. I talk with my hands. My students have made fun of me for this. I never cuss. Well— very rarely.
As I mentioned in my last blog post, this academic year I’m teaching entirely online, which means this well-practiced persona has no application. At the public library, my usual workplace, I’m far from the buttoned-up-and-tucked-in teacher I am in the classroom. Instead, I’m that unshaven dude slouching in front of his laptop who looks like he’s been there for hours. My shoes aren’t office-anything. I’d rather just take them off—something unimaginable in the classroom—but I did once, and a library security guard approached me. “Excuse me,” he said. “We ask our patrons to wear shoes.” (Sometimes, I confess, I tuck my feet under my chair to slip out my heels.)
The only thing that hasn’t changed from my classroom to my online teaching persona is that I talk with my hands. Literally, I mean. The video lectures have all been uploaded by the originators of the course (a tremendous amount of class-prep done for me), so now all I do—in the announcements, emails, and various feedback loops—is type.
Brian Goedde
English and Writing Department
Washtenaw Community College