First Week Summary and Reflection

Getting passed my nervous stomach and logistical worries, the first week can be summed up in a sentence. Teaching for 6 hours a day, everyday, is taxing. It is taxing because I am a one man show, having to figure out what worksheets I need, what presentations, what lesson plans to employ. The issue is I am writing or winging it as I go along forward.

Typically last week I was feeling stressed even as I left the school at 3.30 because I knew I needed to sleep at 10, which after traffic, gives me about 5 hours of whatever time. Now that is no different from most working folks, but I needed to get my act together as I was stringing along. This weekend, as I write this entry, I need to plan out the whole week at the very least. That way I don't feel a nervousness that just never passes.

So the first day was a throw away day -- 3 hours was an orientation of all classes together. I gave them a syllabus, went over an icebreaker called 'There is a Building on Your Back.'

I find that when I do not have every second coordinated, I not only lose my focus, but the class does.

As for the students, well, they are high schoolers. They are complainers at times, but for the most part they are not disruptive and stay on task. The class has a flux still, so I am unsure who will be in the class for the long run.

The major assignment that I gave was getting them familiar with the design process....having a client (the program coordinator) come in and discuss her wishes for a storage unit and desk for the school's greenhouse. I needed to explain communication is key for architects, showed them how to field measure, and then asked them to draw the building to scale. Scale is universally seen as a difficult thing to teach, but with some of their previous exposure, it appears I may have pushed them to become that much more comfortable.

I also introduced sketchup to them.

In addition, I went into the theory of right side/left side of the brain. Even going as far as to cplaim semiotics in a way with pictures of chairs. Explaining form and function.

They are receptive to illustrations/images.

I was given the directive to begin the day with silent reading. I give them reading assignments out of the book or from articles related to dc architecture.