Adventures in Teaching

Today was my first day back teaching. It was nice to get up and going at a reasonable hour. My task for the day: come up with a 4 hour lesson plan that covers two given topics: “Teenage Rebellion” and “Naming and Shaming”. Believe it or not, I am not expert in either one.

So, first half was dedicated to “Teenage Rebellion”. I asked my class of 20 year olds, “What did you do to rebel as a teenager?”

Blank stares.

“Did you ever do anything that made your parents unhappy on purpose?”

My students, after some hesitation asked, “Why would we do that?”

Then for thirty minutes, I shared and we discussed the culture of teenage rebellion in the United States. (Not sure if this is very ambassador like of me… but…) There were of course the Uyen classics: staying out late, having friends that were guys and procrastinating from chores and occasionally homework. (In the words of Nura: SCANDALOUS!) Like I said, this is not really my area of expertise. Afterward, I tried to remember what others might do: dye their hair an unusual color, wear all black, do drugs, run away from home… (Seriously, I don’t know what people do to rebel). My class was SHOCKED!

“Do people really do that Ms. Uyen?”

“Yes, but it isn’t as bad as it sounds.”

On to “Naming and Shaming”! The material they gave me had descriptions of crimes and appropriate punishments (Um… yeah, another topic for another time…) But as the sun started to descend, my students were hitting the evitable 2.5 hour wall. So, the mock trial-er in me decided to put together a mock courtroom to re-engage everyone.

I had a set of jury members to decide guilty or not guilty and another set of members to decide on a sentence. At first I was a little concerned about explaining the different roles. I originally had attorneys for both sides but as I presented the roleplay, I quickly realized they had no idea what a courtroom was. Can you say CULTURAL /SOCIETAL DIFFERENCES? Better yet, can you say SAWKWARD! This then spun into a 20 minute explanation of the judicial system in “my country”, ugh. Rough.

In the end though, I have to say I am really proud of my students. I gave them some critical thinking tasks and they debated “sufficient evidence” (YES! One of my students used this term! SO PROUD!).

Onward to more adventures in teaching! I teach the same lesson Thursday to another group of students, so stay tuned. I’ll let you know if the classes are comparable.