It's not that Arya had never taught before. It was more that she had never taught so formally before. Walking up the steps to David Kinley Hall that Tuesday morning, she tried hard not to think past the thesis class she was just about to walk into.
Teaching had always been something fun for Arya. It started out during a summer in middle school. While visiting India, she'd noticed a large number of construction workers' children loitering in the streets. So, she collected them and taught them English in her back yard. A couple years later, when her friends started learning (and struggling in) French, she tutored them. Well, not so much tutored them as led them in day-before-the-exam cram sessions that began at 8am.
Moving to college was a big deal for Arya. Finally she was back in the United States. But it was also scary. She found herself on a new campus, where she knew no one. She often thought of herself as outgoing, but she wasn't so sure- sometimes she could be quite quiet. Luckily, the people in her dorm seemed very nice and she found herself able to get along with them quite easily. This was in large part due to the international nature of the people that lived in her dorm- Global Crossroads- where 50% of the students were Americans and the other half were international.
A month or so into her first semester of college, Arya and her friend Katie were talking about the diversity of people they were exposed to in their dorm, and the variety of languages and cultures they brought with them. Both Arya and Katie loved learning languages and had made it a personal goal to learn as many as possible. "Wouldn't it be great," they thought "if there was a way we could all teach each other the languages we know?" And so, with the help of their RA, Arya and Katie created a student organization called Linguaphiles, centered on students teaching each other their native languages and/or about their cultures. Arya was so excited to learn all these languages she'd never even dreamed of learning- Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Russian to just name a few. Best of all, she could teach French again, along with spoken Hindi!
Finally, while she was in Paris she had taught English and French to middle school children.
'See?' Arya thought to herself. 'This is no big deal. You've done this before, you can do it again. You taught middle school, for crying out loud! Kids are horrible at that age!' Yet what scared Arya the most about teaching LAS 101 was that she was in charge of these freshman. She couldn't do that! She was barely over being a freshman herself! How can she help all these kids learn to adapt to college? She couldn't shake the feeling of still being a kid and hence not ready for the responsibility that this position entailed.
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Pa-pa-da-pa. The alarm on Arya's cellphone sang the opening notes to Frank Sinatra's Girl from Ipanema to signal that it was time to start winding up her first lesson. Arya clasped her hands and smiled as the students who were closer to the front heard the music.
"Don't worry guys, that's just the alarm telling me it's time to start winding up- not my phone going off." she clarified. She tried to keep the veneer of being calm despite panicking internally. Three minutes left in the lesson, and she'd just started to introduce the class website! She was running out of time!
At 1:50, Arya took a quick breath, and as students began to shuffle out of the classroom, reminded them to buy the textbook and bring their electronic devices to class next week. And with that, she had done it. She had finished her first day teaching LAS 101. Forming and shaping these young minds. She walked out with a feeling similar to the one she had felt during orientation- of having come full circle.
The next Monday, in LAS 399, Arya's TA asked the students of the class to share things that had and had not gone well. Arya talked about how she had had so much trouble managing time, but that her class was already a lot of fun, outgoing, and seemed to be already willing to make friends with each other. Arya knew that this was going to be a great semester.
Teaching had always been something fun for Arya. It started out during a summer in middle school. While visiting India, she'd noticed a large number of construction workers' children loitering in the streets. So, she collected them and taught them English in her back yard. A couple years later, when her friends started learning (and struggling in) French, she tutored them. Well, not so much tutored them as led them in day-before-the-exam cram sessions that began at 8am.
Moving to college was a big deal for Arya. Finally she was back in the United States. But it was also scary. She found herself on a new campus, where she knew no one. She often thought of herself as outgoing, but she wasn't so sure- sometimes she could be quite quiet. Luckily, the people in her dorm seemed very nice and she found herself able to get along with them quite easily. This was in large part due to the international nature of the people that lived in her dorm- Global Crossroads- where 50% of the students were Americans and the other half were international.
A month or so into her first semester of college, Arya and her friend Katie were talking about the diversity of people they were exposed to in their dorm, and the variety of languages and cultures they brought with them. Both Arya and Katie loved learning languages and had made it a personal goal to learn as many as possible. "Wouldn't it be great," they thought "if there was a way we could all teach each other the languages we know?" And so, with the help of their RA, Arya and Katie created a student organization called Linguaphiles, centered on students teaching each other their native languages and/or about their cultures. Arya was so excited to learn all these languages she'd never even dreamed of learning- Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Russian to just name a few. Best of all, she could teach French again, along with spoken Hindi!
Finally, while she was in Paris she had taught English and French to middle school children.
'See?' Arya thought to herself. 'This is no big deal. You've done this before, you can do it again. You taught middle school, for crying out loud! Kids are horrible at that age!' Yet what scared Arya the most about teaching LAS 101 was that she was in charge of these freshman. She couldn't do that! She was barely over being a freshman herself! How can she help all these kids learn to adapt to college? She couldn't shake the feeling of still being a kid and hence not ready for the responsibility that this position entailed.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Pa-pa-da-pa. The alarm on Arya's cellphone sang the opening notes to Frank Sinatra's Girl from Ipanema to signal that it was time to start winding up her first lesson. Arya clasped her hands and smiled as the students who were closer to the front heard the music.
"Don't worry guys, that's just the alarm telling me it's time to start winding up- not my phone going off." she clarified. She tried to keep the veneer of being calm despite panicking internally. Three minutes left in the lesson, and she'd just started to introduce the class website! She was running out of time!
At 1:50, Arya took a quick breath, and as students began to shuffle out of the classroom, reminded them to buy the textbook and bring their electronic devices to class next week. And with that, she had done it. She had finished her first day teaching LAS 101. Forming and shaping these young minds. She walked out with a feeling similar to the one she had felt during orientation- of having come full circle.
The next Monday, in LAS 399, Arya's TA asked the students of the class to share things that had and had not gone well. Arya talked about how she had had so much trouble managing time, but that her class was already a lot of fun, outgoing, and seemed to be already willing to make friends with each other. Arya knew that this was going to be a great semester.
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