November 15: Pedagogical Persona critical reflection

PC: Counterweight Flying Exercise. Challenged and maintained the interest of specific students for whom classroom exercise was relevant.
Tone was relaxed, playful, with a touch of snark that the students appeared to appreciate when they screwed up.
Did not appear to take safety as seriously as exercise indicated.
Did not attempt to engage the attention of the greater majority of the class, who spent most of the day standing or sitting around being annoyed with each other, not paying attention, and getting in the way.



NM: Semiotics Lecture.
The lecturer covered the topic's key points quickly but with warmth and humour. He sought repeatedly to relate the content to the assembled students' areas of study.
The lecture was fast and very light-touch. This was by necessity and design: the class was only an hour long, and it was an introductory overview for first years who may or may not have a genuine interest in the field of study.
Students were not afforded more than cursory opportunities to participate or contribute to the content of the lecture; questions posed to the group were either rhetorical or the lecturer answered them for himself before the students had a chance to digest the question. This may have been due to time constraints, but it felt as though the windows to invite the students to respond were largely perfunctory. He had no real desire to hear their thoughts or even check that they comprehended, which was all the more ironic in a class about communication and understanding.
The space was small, warm and airless. Students started nodding off at about the 40 minute mark. It was difficult to measure attention. Some people actually pay attention quite well when staring off into the middle distance, which I find disconcerting.
The lecturer's tone was warm and engaging but some content was objectionable and led to a palpable disconnect between him and the students. The lecturer referred to theatre as 'pretend' and indicated that the dual usage of the word 'play' to mean 'piece of theatre' and 'children's imaginative activity' was relevant and deliberate. I find the shared usage of this word frustrating and avoid it, as do many theatre and performance makers who find the term infantilising and trivialising. As a way to introduce semiotics it may have felt apt, but it was distracting and may have engendered distrust. Particularly among crafts makers, for whom much of their work and skill is decidedly not pretend.
The overall impression I received was that the tutor was ultimately disgruntled with the subject and found teaching this particular lesson trying. This may have developed out of a former enthusiasm for semiotics that was not shared by a class, or several classes' worth of students, but while he understood the material to a significant depth he didn't seem to have it in him to give much of a hoot about it. It was difficult to tell where this struggle originated, if his attitude today toward the subject caused or was caused by the miasma of apathy that hovered in the room.