Teaching is Fun

I am teaching one class this semester. This week's topic was how to pursue and gain more information about and experience in prospective careers. Since the topic is rather bland and straightforward, I thought to make it more engaging and enjoyable. I know that different people have different ideas about how a college teacher should run class, and mine involve the notion that humor and fun can be utilized to promote learning. So, I don't mind being (or rolling with) absurdity so long as the points are there and students seem to be getting the information and perspectives that I am trying to convey. Plus, I really don't want to stand at the front of a classroom and just talk at people for an hour. Keep in mind that these are college students, and that I am pretty good at perceiving and regulating the line between how much silliness students can handle before the class material gets lost and we are starting to get off track. It's a balance.

Let the fun begin.

I began by asking if anyone in the class had a career in mind that we could use as an example of how to go about exploring careers and subfields of careers. We began with counselor, and we discussed how to gather information and consider different types of counseling professions (e.g., social work, psychology, marital therapy, school counselor, etc.). When I asked for another example, someone suggested we think about "clowns." To their credit (and this is why I didn't mind pursuing this absurd suggestion), we discussed how it would be important to look at the reputations of various clown colleges and training programs, and students suggested things such as the necessity of deciding whether one would want to be a circus clown and a birthday clown and brainstormed about how to learn more about these types of jobs and start to get experience in them. While the suggestion of being a clown was rather absurd, it did provide an enjoyable way of engaging students and having them demonstrate insight about how to pursue a career.

Then it got really interesting. Just to try to be funny, one student suggested the career of "porn star." I am not one to back down from a student trying to throw me off, so I rolled with it and asked him where one might go to learn more about this particular profession and how he might find out about avenues for gaining experience in it, at which point the student suggested going to a local strip club. He then proceeded to invite me to meet him there next week (which I would not do of course), offering to buy me lap dances. I stopped him when he began to suggest bringing the females in the class for amateur night, and he apologized for going to far with the joke.

Later in that class, as we talked about how an informational interview (an interview with someone working in the field, geared toward learning more about their job) could be useful, I asked for volunteers to role play the initial phone call requesting the interview. One student kept trying to volunteer his friend (much to his friend's annoyance), so I invited that student to do it himself "because that's what happens when you try to volunteer other people." He strongly declined. So, I had the student who did volunteer (the same one the friend was trying to volunteer) not only play the role of a rude and annoyed receptionist trying to screen the student-interviewer's call, but also to play this role as the student who had tried to volunteer him! At one point the student-receptionist pretended to interrupt the student-interviewer to eat a sandwich, at which point I stopped him to try to redirect him and inquire whether he thought his friend was an idiot. His friend did back him up, though, and let the class know that he does indeed love sandwiches very much, and would probably be eating one while on the phone.

Of course, the students also spoke seriously and for the most part did serious role plays and such (I am omitting those parts, as I really doubt anyone reading this is interested in the 15 minutes we spent doing case vingettes and problem-solving around typical obstacles faced by undergraduates trying to pursue a particular type of job). I really like that we were able to combine learning (and demonstration of that learning) with levity in a way that engaged them in what might have otherwise been a rather boring topic. Had they not been demonstrating knowledge and creativity about the topic (e.g. how to explore careers, get more experience, and initiate an interview with someone), I would have directed our time together back to a more serious, lecture-y tone. That they got the points we were discussing, while still having some fun, was wonderful!

Teaching is fun. :)