Section

You know that feeling when you rock section? When you're really prepared, and the students are really engaged, and they've all (some) read, and you're totally on top of it? And you feel great?

You also know those days when you think you're prepared and you have all your notes but you get into class and they may have been written in Swahili for as far as it matters b/c they make no sense, you've lost you internal logic, but you're still talking about something that doesn't even make sense as you hear yourself say it but you still - can't - stop- talking? So you talk faster and faster and the next thing you know you're talking about Calvinists and giving the middle finger to the Catholic Church and you're only 20 minutes in and oh god, why are they all looking at me and why can't I shut up?

...it all worked so well in my head... it all worked so well on Wednesday...

Two of my biggest frustrations are trying to figure out how to teach what is so ingrained in me that I do it instinctively: reading primary source and reading secondary sources. I think this is all the more difficult with the reading-dump that students get assigned here, and in part more difficult b/c I'm looking at this stuff for the first time - but for some reason I can't seem to go through with a class of 25 what I am able to do on my own, or teach someone to do one on one. I have a hard time remembering a time when I didn't know how to read, when I didn't know how to ask questions, hell, when I didn't even know which questions to ask. One on one, np - the dialogue is what works. one on 25 (sounds dirty, no?), a mess. a horrible mess.

At some point I need to really put together a "How to read a primary source" and "how to read a secondary source" and just focus on doing one, and then focus on doing the other. What I'm doing now is trying to discuss major issues raised in the readings (which in these classes are the who/what/when/where/why/huh? stuff) and through that bring in how to do the history stuff. I'm basically combining discussing the content with the basics of how to the reading/writing/analyzing stuff - and it's not working. I guess this is the same struggle my dept faces: do we teach students the methodology or assume they know the methodology and focus on the content? When I focus on the content (which is also what the prof does), I find that the methodology is sorely lacking. When I try to focus on the methodology, I find the context is so lacking that the methodology doesn't make much sense.

Ok, enough, I'm boring myself with this post and giving you a sad glimpse into what my section-addled brain was like.