This week I have gotten into full swing of teaching. I have 4 lectures this week, have done 2 practicals, and have invigilated 2 exams (doesn’t that sound dirty? I always feel like I need a shower after I say I’ve been invigilating. Jackie and I had a disagreement about which sounds dirtier—invigilating or proctoring—that is still unresolved. I think really proctoring sounds gross but invigilating sounds, hmm, dirtier somehow.) I’ve been waking up early and staying in at lunch to try and get all these lectures done. Erin says she doesn’t believe in taking work home, which in theory I agree with, but in practice I don’t see the alternative; she must be much more efficient than I am. I hope that after this week I will be able to work ahead of the week some so that I don’t get slammed again. We’ll see—as per usual, under strict deadline I am incredibly efficient, but if I’ve got time to spare I spare it and then some.
One thing that I’ve realized is how much better I am at lecturing about topics I have experience with. I did leukemia the other day and it’s just I am interested in the topic, I have stories to illustrate my points with, I know which points to emphasize and which are not as important, and most importantly, I can answer questions quickly and with conviction (well, most of the time).
Compare that with my fluid and electrolyte balance lecture that I gave about 3 weeks ago, where I know the material but not backwards and forwards (even after I studied for weeks). There’s only one word for how I did: I bombed. I picked out the wrong things as being important; I wasn’t able to simplify enough to make it all make sense; and I couldn’t illustrate my points well enough to make my meaning clear—and even that presupposes that the meaning was clear in my own head in the first place.
Unfortunately, I can’t only teach the lectures that correspond to the topics I know very well. A lot of those topics have been covered by people who have been here a whole lot longer than I have and probably are just as proficient as lecturing those topics as I would be. Also unfortunately, often I end up with very difficult topics because those are the ones that no one else wants to teach. Not that I take all of those topics, but I certainly didn’t pick pediatric renal failure because I had this burning urge to explore the topic in more depth . . .
I hope that over time, I will get into the rhythm of lecturing a little more and that I will figure out what works and what doesn’t work well enough that my failures will be only minor and not ginormous ones. It’s just so hard to lecture across the language (and cultural) barrier. I can’t tell if what I’m saying is getting through to more than a few of my students, although I do know that when I pretend I’m an old person hunched over a walker, they find it hilarious (which was at least 50% of the point, so I guess that’s ok).
