White water rafting: aka Teaching

Reading Stephen Brookfield's book "The Skillful Teacher" I laughed out loud over the analogy teaching is very much akin to white water rafting!

I think any teacher can instantly come back to at least one experience in the classroom when the orderly calm went sideways.

Image courtesy Wet n' Wild Adventures Golden BC

Thanks to Wet n' Wild Adventures for use of their image

And sideways can look like all manner of things:

You brought the wrong lesson plan.
The removable drive with your amazing digital presentation is still in your computer at home.
Your guest speaker doesn't show up (or comes a week too soon)
The group activity you've carefully prepared based on your class of 32 now has to be modified for 12, as its their week off next week, and your class is Friday afternoon.
Something you intend to cover briefly is emotionally charged for the group and WOW does it start discussion.

I once gave a lecture in my ethics class that, on this particular day, just happened to cover insurance fraud. I callously made a casual reference that of all the dumb things NOT to do, NEVER commit insurance fraud. I think one of my exact quotes was "Go ahead and jump off the top of a building, but it's just not worth the risk to go down the path of creating fraudulent receipts, especially with government agencies. It's never worth ending your career."

What I didn't know is a prominent and well liked Chiropractor had been lead away in cuffs that morning on fraud charges that had been issued in the USA for defrauding 2 separate government health agencies there. (This was before they missed a court date and fled to Canada.)

3 of my students burst into tears.

I had no idea what was going on. Someone filled me in at lunch, I so did not see that coming.

While we as educators need not sit in fear while in a moment of calm in the classroom, we should remember to bend at the knees and have a firm grip on the material. The wave will come, and we won't know from which direction. We might think we see where things are going, only to be caught up in something below the surface, an undercurrent with a lot of pull.

The pull could be monumental appreciation and validation of long pondered assumptions, or conversely, utter resistance to something that feels counter-intuitive to your class.

College students bring with them a lifetime of experiences. It's one of the assets that enriches the classroom experience when working with adult learners, but it's an unknown element when we tap into it. Thusly, by nature, a gamble and unpredictable.

And, like the waterways in Kicking Horse Golden BC seen here, it sure isn't boring!