Does College Education Rock?

Posted by Naomi Rockler-Gladen Nov 15, 2006

Yesterday I had a bad teaching day, and wrote some fairly negative things about college education. Today, I thought I'd write about some of my favorite teaching memories.

• The canoe. The day started out badly, with an irate student disputing a grade. After he left, I peered out into the hallway, and saw two of my students carrying a canoe. "Hi, Naomi!" they said, as if it were perfectly normal to walk down the hallway with a canoe over their heads. They were on their way to my public speaking class, where one of the students gave a speech about explorers. She gave it while sitting in the canoe. When students do creative things, it's so much fun!
• The unicycle. One of my students was deathly afraid of public speaking. His solution? He decided to make his speech as terrifying as possible-- by delivering it while riding a unicycle.
• The table dance. I have an activity where students act out a movie or TV show with reversed gender roles. One semester, students decided reverse the gender roles in Coyote Ugly (they called it Guyote Ugly.) The original movie was about female table dancers, so they had a male one- who leaped on top of a wobbly table and proceeded to get down! Thank goodness the table didn't collapse.
• The war. During the beginning of the War in Iraq, I was fortunate to have a fabulous group of students in my media and politics class. We spent most of the semester watching media coverage of the war and discussing it. Students from both sides of the issue were very vocal, and we had the best conversations. I'll never forget one student in the class, who told me he wanted to work for the CIA because he lived in New York and wanted to protect his country.
• The singing TA. One semester in my popular culture class, I had a TA who volunteered to do the music lectures. She taught the students about music throughout the twentieth century by singing the lyrics and dancing. It was awesome, and students still ask me about her (and she pops by this blog sometimes, so hey there, singing TA!) That was one of my nicest classes of students. When I told them I was pregnant, they applauded.
• The trumpets. Two of my students played trumpets during my wedding ceremony. It was great to be able to include them.

I'll post more another time perhaps, as I have lots of great memories.

Oh, hey, if any of my former students have stumbled upon this website, post in the discussion or email me! I love to hear from former students.