Back in Class

(Yes, the image is Chemistry and the instructor is way better looking.) The students are beginning to arrive on campus and one can feel that sense of excitement. Parents with smiling kids take turns before digital cameras capturing images of the thrill of fresh high school graduates brimming with the sense of possibility and unprecedented freedom from mom and dad. I didn't last six weeks on campus before finding myself talking to the math department.

I happily accepted a late afternoon course with about 35 students, the college algebra that every student must pass to graduate. Sadly, few freshmen have high school backgrounds with adequate math, so the course is always a challenge, but that's where the course leader concept proves most rewarding. Anyone can teach already motivated geniuses.

I've already written about course leading versus teaching. Leading a course involves managing the entire set of interactions, which makes it possible to reach and motivate the frightened and semi-angry through terrain they resist. It is a completely different conversation. The math is there, but it's not about the math. The only thing that beats the flashing bulbs is the enthusiasm and gratitude they have at the end, and best of all, the implicit satisfaction of having contributed and made a real difference. Almost without exception and especially with this course, when they experience the flashes as designed, the participants truly get that they can in fact grasp what they considered beyond them. It changes everything.