I'm Back (Part 2)

I arrived at Civilization about half an hour early, as I had a letter to write and desperately needed that neurological kick-in-the-ass provided by a large serving of caffeine, straight up. My fix was handed to me in an awkwardly shaped, heavy, coffee cup, more suitable for spooning soup than sipping anything. A wobbly table provided the catalyst for catastrophe, dumping half the cup on my stenographers' notepad. Remembering that my blessings far outweigh my misfortunes, I sopped up the mess with a brown paper napkin, and keeping my smile, asked the girl behind the counter for a to-go cup.

A few minutes later, several members of my class arrived. We all kept an eye on the door, looking for a woman with toe-head blonde hair who matched the photograph we were given on Monday.

She bounded in with a grin, scanning the room for faces who were, in turn, looking for her. My vibrating back pocket kept me from immediately joining the group, but I was able to cut the conversation short, and soon the five of us were involved in a lively discussion about experiential learning, assessment, and our reflections on the assignment to date, which lasted more than an hour and a half.

With smug satisfaction, I listened to Professor Nagy explain John Dewey's philosophy that "all genuine education comes through experience". Deweys' thinking parallels my own teaching methods, which I believe are the antidote to the numbness inflicted upon young minds by lecture overload. It was so good to see a professional development course based upon real life experience and common sense as opposed to traditional pedagogy.
(Sorry 'bout that, friends, I'm starting to slip into edu-speak. Let me take a moment and slap myself....oww!....I'm better now.)

The field experience portion of the class was technically to have taken only two days, but I think I will extend my "talk to strangers" time frame through this evening. You see, I plan on attending the North East Ohio Blogger Meet-up at the Town Fryer, and I know from experience that we can be a pretty strange crowd. So if you are reading this on Wednesday afternoon...introduce yourself tonight at the Fryer, and I will be blogging about you tomorrow.