Final Thoughts

Although this blog is a story about Arya's semester as an LAS 101 intern, it is perhaps best that this post be articulated in the first person.

Both LAS 101 and LAS 399 change us in very subtle ways, and so why they contribute to our development, we often can't tell how. I didn't truly realize the impact these courses had on me until it was time for me to give my thesis prospectus defense. In the days leading up to this presentation, I was a little worried, I'd have to explain my research to a room full of people who didn't necessarily know much about nuclear weapons and conflict and then demonstrate to them how and why it's important! Stepping up to the front of the class, the nerves were still there, but then I pulled up the PowerPoint, just like I did in LAS 101 and almost immediately found myself.

Standing there,  I was able to channel that "LAS 101 intern" personality and turn what is usually a serious and boring presentation into something a little more relaxed and enjoyable while still getting my point across.

Talking in front of a class every week definitely made me more confident in myself, as well as greatly improved my public speaking skills. Further, not everything would go according to plan during a given lesson, so teaching definitely helped sharpen my quick-thinking skills of what to do next based on what was happening right then. This was particularly important because I'm a creature of habit and routine- I stick to both religiously.

LAS 101 and 399 were both essential in helping me develop time management skills and interpersonal skills in a different context. I can manage my own time rather well, and am quite personable. However, this time I was leading a class which required a different application of those skills.

The particular function that LAS 399 served to teach me is one that I never thought I needed. I'm generally a forward-thinking person, and once I finish something, I tend to leave it in the past. I don't really think about it much. However, the reflections we did in 399 went completely against that and forced us to think about what happened, why, what went wrong, and what we might have changed. In doing these reflections, I learned the importance of thinking, rethinking, revising, reevaluating, and looking for ways to improve something even though it's  in the past and may never be necessary. This type of hindsight can and will be applied to many other things over the course of a professional life.  

Trials and Tribulations

Leading a class of twenty five students is no easy task. True, Arya got lucky with a great group of kids, but they still had their fair share of problems. Perhaps what Arya struggled with the most in the classroom was participation. Section 35 started out the semester as a very participatory class, but starting about six weeks into the semester, they started getting really quiet. Of course, this has a variety of explanations, but it was at times difficult to work with. It was most difficult during Study Abroad Week when Arya's friends came to present on their experiences abroad and the classroom was almost dead. However, almost as soon as they left, Arya's class asked to see pictures of her time in Paris.

The participation continued to be a problem for Arya until about week ten, when Kaitlyn had them try writing down their responses. This way, if Arya really wanted "class sharing" they had a reference point, but if not, she could just collect the papers and give them participation points based on that.

The other struggle Arya faced was a more personal one. Generally, Arya tends to get very invested in those she cares about, and that was something she had to be very careful about with her class. Yes, she cared about her students, their safety, and success a lot, but she needed to remind herself that it wasn't her deal, exactly. This was made a little harder by students such as Lyle who really opened up to her and often came to talk to her if they felt they needed someone to listen to them or advice or anything.

The method Arya employed to ensure she didn't get overinvested in her students was very simple. Mentally, she'd take two steps back and then take a deep breath. This was essential in reminding herself that it wasn't her who was facing these struggles, but her students, and as much as she wanted to solve all their problems, they needed to learn to figure things out for themselves. 

Chapter 7: The Last Day

"Good morning!" Arya chirped at her class as she laid out three boxes of brownies in front of the class. The start of class was usually rather quiet, with only a few people socializing, but today they looked rather confused. Lyle, one of Arya's most participating students walked in.

"Come on guys!" He announced in a booming voice, pulling off his hoodie. "Why's it so dead in here? Last day of class, we've got to make it a memorable one!" That seemed to get their attention, but only served to make Arya a little more sad. She remained composed, but inside, her mind was having a temper tantrum like a two year old 'I. DON'T. WANT. IT. TO. BE. THE. LAST. DAY. OF. CLAAAAAASSS!!!!' it was screaming.

Briefly, they went over the days lesson plan. It was mainly about finals and how to prep and destress for them. Arya knew that her students had the whole preparation thing down and didn't dally on that part too much but she made sure that they knew about the various ways the university could help them destress during finals- from puppies to massages!

As Arya finished explaining the student review forms for the semester and thanked them for being such great students and making her experience so memorable, Arya felt herself getting a little emotional. Looking around, she saw the same mirrored in the faces of a few students. Quietly, she left the room, waiting for the ten minutes to be up so that she could go back in. 30 seconds later, the student who had offered to take charge of the whole operation appeared, saying there weren't nearly enough forms. Confused, Arya popped her head back in, and asked to see one of the forms. Looking at the top, she noticed that she had taken someone else's forms! Trying not to panic, she ran back to the LAS office, and depositing these wrong forms back in the box, searched for her own and ran back. You see, she hadn't realized that each envelope of forms had the intern name on it- she thought they were all the same and so she just had to take any one and go.

The class took almost twenty minutes to fill out their student review forms- something Arya had never experienced before. When they'd finished, she went back in and looked out at her class one last time. Again, she thanked them for being such a great class, and reminded them to take as many brownies as they wished. The bell rang. They were dismissed. Much to Arya's surprise, there was still a crowd of students gathering around her podium to come talk to her and ask her questions! As one by one, they all left, Arya noticed that Lyle was standing at her side, just waiting.

When it came down to just Lyle and Brady, the latter asked if Lyle wanted to go first. "Nah, it's okay. I'm gonna walk with her." he said. So Brady asked his question, thanked her for a great semester and walked out the door.

"So what's up?" Arya asked, dropping her binder into her handbag. Usually, when Lyle wanted to walk with her, he had something to talk about and needed someone to vent to or lean on.

"Nothing, it's the last class, so I thought I'd walk with you." he replied simply. Arya was touched. Slowly, Lyle started talking about his Thanksgiving break, all the assignments and finals he had, and his plans for Christmas. As they crossed the Quad, Arya and Lyle realized that they were headed in opposite directions. To her surprise, Lyle thanked her for a great semester, and for being there when he needed her. He surprised Arya with a hug (she knew from her RA friends that she's not supposed to initiate that), and continued on his way. 

Chapter 6: Like a REAL Teacher

'It's cool. I've got this.' Arya thought as she walked jauntily into her classroom. 'I've had my resume reviewed, I done resume reviews. This is going to be a breeze. No big deal. Really.' These pre-class pep talks had gotten her through her first few weeks as an LAS 101 intern, and while they'd died out over the course of the semester, it was particularly important on this brisk November day. Why? Because this lesson was 100% Arya's.

True, Arya had become a lot more confident in her capabilities, but her insecurities from the sixth week continued into the twelfth. 'What if they absolutely hate the lesson?' In her mind's eye she saw her students laughing at her, and one of her students ripping his paper in half before walking out.

In her search for creativity, Arya decided to bring music and fantasy into her classroom today. For the first part of the lesson, the students would create fantasy resumes- whether for fantasy jobs or for fantasy characters. As an example, Arya threw together a resume for Albus Dumbledore in front of the class. As the students worked, she played Mahler's 3rd Symphony in the background; music that she felt was apt for the assignment.

Immediately, she was able to see the spark in her students' eyes- a spark she hadn't seen six weeks ago when she planned their midterm lesson. This was very important as it was during that lesson that she realized that watching videos is rather passive activity and since around week five, participation had stagnated to a point that she needed to see higher levels of engagement.

The next step for the day was to walk her students to each of the three resumes Arya had created over the course of her college career to demonstrate how they had changed and evolved with time. After guiding them through it, she asked the class to start thinking about what they would put on their resumes and reviewing it with those seated around them.

Going into the lesson, Arya felt very confident about the success of the lesson. However, after seeing the resumes the students later submitted, Arya realized that she'd made a mistake in not properly explaining the format of a resume. In some ways, this was exactly what she was afraid of- that she would somehow leave their information on a topic either incorrect or incomplete. Fortunately, resumes are easily remedied and are going to change, but Arya still felt bad. 

Chapter 5: Wheel of Fortune

"Okay!" Arya clapped her hands. "As promised last week, this class my friend Kaitlyn will be co-teaching this lesson with me, so that we can have a diversity of perspectives and not just mine." she nodded at her friend.

"Hi everyone! My name is Kaitlyn, and I'm in Arya's LAS 399 class. Today, she and I will be leading the lesson in professional development." Kaitlyn began, clicking ahead in the PowerPoint they had made together the previous day.

Kaitlyn and Arya decided to title their lesson the "Wheel of Fortune" as the students were going to be working on career wheels that day. After explaining the concept, each of the girls showed the students their career wheels which each of them filled out as freshman versions of themselves. Both of them were very pleased with the way this worked out as while Kaitlyn's career plans had changed almost completely since her first year of college, Arya's hadn't changed at all.

The previous day in LAS 399, the class had discussed the shortcomings of the career wheel- that it was so busy trying to accommodate all majors that it was too general, and likely to cause students to perceive/panic thinking that one criteria is important when it may not be so for their particular major. So, after class, Kaitlyn and Arya came up with their own version of the career wheel. Calling it the "career path" they flattened out the career wheel and turned it into a more step-by-step process of what needs to be done and when.

Things flowed rather well in Arya's class. In her class, Kaitlyn usually gave her students time to think and write down responses before sharing with the the rest of the room, a tactic they found to work rather well with Arya's kids. Going into the next hour with Kaitlyn's class though, Arya was afraid of stepping on her toes. In the past, some had told her that she has a domineering personality, while others noted that she's a bit of a control freak. And so, going into Kaitlyn's class, Arya tried her best to ensure that she didn't talk too much and detract from Kait's delivery of the lesson, just as Kaitlyn had done in her own class.

Letting the students write down their thoughts before sharing them with the class was only one of the things Arya learned from Kaitlyn. The other was how to keep her eye on the ball during lessons. By week 10, Arya had established a good working dynamic with her students; they got along well and were very comfortable with each other. Hence, Arya found that they would occasionally get lost on a tangent, leading to lost class time. On the other hand, Kaitlyn was better able to stay on track and make sure they don't take their eye off the ball.

Chapter 4: Diversity

The eighth week of classes was one that many LAS 101 interns were concerned about. This two month mark was the lesson in which they were to talk about diversity- a very sensitive issue. Many of the interns in Arya's LAS 399 class would talk about how they felt that certain students might not be particularly receptive to the weeks' lesson. However, this was not the case for Arya and her class.

As many of them were STEM majors or similar, many of Arya's students were incredibly logical. When presented with the scenarios that Arya had written out for them, each instantly began to search for the facts of each case and didn't hesitate to ask Arya for clarification. Her only concern was that they all saw the world in such a black and white manner that they failed to see the intricacies of each case, regardless of how much she prompted them.

"How many of you have parents who went to college here?" Arya asked, looking hopefully over the heads of her twenty five students. No one raised their hands. Arya took a deep breath.
"Okay, how many of you think that our school mascot is offensive?" A majority of the class raised their hands.
"Can any of you think of any reasons why someone might be in favor of keeping it?" Nothing.

Finally, a student piped up.
"We shouldn't have it. It's demonstrated right here in this example! It's racist, and if we're not a part of that ethnic group we have no say in the issue."

That was when Arya realized that there was no way to bring nuance into the days' discussions. This was not exactly the students' fault, but indicative of their development. As a freshman, Arya didn't have much of an eye for nuance either and saw everything as either black or white. As a senior, obviously, this had changed, but the change was a consequence of time.

The experience in her LAS 101 class was drastically different from what Arya saw in her LAS 399 class. In the latter, in a room filled with upperclassmen, there was actually some show of debate, albeit limited. Having been exposed to diversity on many levels and having been exposed to a plethora of viewpoints, they were more able than the young'uns to flesh out and articulate their ideas.

Regardless, Arya felt as if she had come away from the lesson having learned at least a few things. As a freshman she had taken a class on international negotiations and diplomacy, and much of it had focused on being a mediator between two parties. In LAS 399, much of the prep that went into week 8 revolved around conflict. The difference was that the conflict here was purported to be an emotionally-based one, which must be approached in a radically different manner. Hence, Arya felt as if she was now more emotionally sensitive, something she had been trying to work on. Additionally, a political science major, a common tactic employed by Arya's professors to encourage students to think was "devil's advocate". Having finally been given the opportunity to do the same, Arya tried it out and greatly enjoyed it. Admittedly, she was kinda disappointed that it didn't take and she couldn't keep at it.  

Chapter 3: Midterms

Week 6 had Arya extremely anxious. Over the past two weeks in LAS 399, Arya and her classmates had been formulating 30 minute lesson plans on how to prepare for midterms, and Arya was petrified.

This was for a multitude of reasons. For starters, Arya was not the most creative of people... or creative at all for that matter. As a result, this lesson plan wasn't the most fun. In 399, she saw the activities some of the others and was so "wowed" by them that she felt really conflicted about the lesson plan she had devised. She wished she had the ability to give her class an experience like the others did, but didn't want to take their ideas. In the end, she stuck with her own plan.

One of the biggest trouble points Arya ran into with devising a lesson plan is she wasn't sure how to teach her students how to study. She and all her friends were humanities majors and these subjects had their own preferred methods of study. However, most of Arya's students were science majors and these subjects had totally different methods of preparation.

When she spoke to her TA of her confusion, Arya's TA suggested a note-taking practice activity. Consequently, Arya had students in the class teach each other how to take Cornell notes and mind-mapping notes before splitting them into groups for each of these two types of note taking and one for a "personal" method of note taking. Then, the whole class watched a video on active reading. Arya felt that this video was best so that over the course of one lesson, the students learned two new things. As the final part of the lesson, Arya's students compared their methods of note taking and discussed which ones worked best for them in different contexts.

Lastly, Arya's greatest fear was that the kids would be able to tell that the lesson had been formulated by her and not her TAs/professors. That they'd see holes in the material presented and tear it to shreds. That the students would take her suggestions as the Word of God, and in a situation where the skills they employed didn't work for them, would hold her responsible for poor grades.

Fortunately, nothing any of the students said or did showed Arya that they knew this lesson plan was her brainchild, and she came away feeling far more confident in her abilities as a teacher.