I was thrilled when I learned my schedule this semester: noon to 4 most days, a nice change from my usual 8 a.m. start. Then I learned the catch. When you teach in the middle of the day, it seems, you’re much more likely to end up in a terrible classroom.
My first class of the semester was in a room with no computer projection system. A major inconvenience for that course, but resolvable – we have portable systems that are usually available, as long as I book in advance and leave for class early enough to get to the IT Centre first.
My next class was, to my astonished chagrin, in the college amphitheatre. It is, as the name would suggest, a lecture hall. It seats around 100, so the first order of business was to move everyone in my class of 40 down into the first 4 rows. The bigger problem is that – well, that it’s a lecture hall. It has a wonderful big projection screen and interesting acoustics, but I’ve never lectured for more than 10 minutes at a go in my life. The seats are bolted to the tables, and it’s impossible for me to get between rows; when it comes to group work, moving students around is going to be a crazy headache. Doing in-class essays is also going to be a challenge, as everyone’s right on top of everyone else. Lecture halls are for lecturing, not teaching. I have no idea how I’m going to work with this space. (When I asked the students how they feel about it, though, they said, “It’s cool! It’s like being at the movies!” I guess so, but they’re unlikely to still feel that way after staring at ME for a few weeks.)
The next day I had my third class. It’s in an almost windowless room in the basement, and five minutes before our first lesson, all the power in the building went out. I fumbled my way downstairs to find that the students were all shining their phones around to see each other, as the room was completely black. Mercifully, the power came on about 10 minutes in – or maybe not so mercifully; the fluorescent glare revealed up a blank, bunged-up, low room twice as deep as it was wide, meaning that I seemed to be shouting at the students in the back through a train tunnel. I have no trouble projecting, but a room like this magnifies student-in-the-last-row behaviour issues; they truly believe themselves to be invisible, so I have a feeling a lot of pauses and “ladies in the back, I’m still talking”s are going to be necessary.
Some colleagues have suggested that I make room change requests – the winter semester is never as crowded as the fall, so there’s an outside chance that such requests will be honoured. However, I’m curious. How will working in these spaces affect my teaching and my students’ learning? How can I accommodate myself and my lessons in creative ways? Is it even possible that dealing with challenging spaces will make me a better teacher? I’m tempted to stick with these weird rooms and see what happens.
Have you had experiences, good or bad, with challenging classrooms or other teaching spaces? How did you deal with them? What did you learn?
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Friends, I’ve taken on too many projects. I’m going to do my absolute best to post once a week at least, but the next few weeks may be sporadic. I’ll do my best to be back on a regular schedule as soon as possible. I hope your winter semester is starting off really well!
Image by Agnes Scholiers
Classroom as Microcosm 