I am not and don't claim to be an outstanding public speaker or instructor, but I do believe I'm competent enough to construct a lesson around a specific topic or topics that progresses in a logical manner from one point to the next and eventually culminates in a desired goal of understanding or acquisition of a new skill which can be done in the span of a class period or multiple class periods. I attribute this to the fact that I do have an undergraduate degree in secondary education. As would seem likely, some of the courses required for the acquisition of this degree deal specifically with how to complete the very task mentioned above, construction of a lesson plan or a unit. This seems like a logical and necessary skill to obtain in the quest to becoming an effective, efficient teacher. This leads me to question why this very same skill isn’t required for instructors in higher education. What exactly is the difference between teaching twelfth-grade seniors and college freshmen? I don't see any.

The reason this topic seems interesting to me now is that I've started taking classes again at the university, and it's blatantly obvious that the instructor I have for this class either isn't comfortable speaking in front of others or so disorganized in his thoughts that it's impossible to ascertain whether he's making it all up as we go along or he's actually knowledgeable on the subject. I prefer to believe the latter; otherwise he wouldn't be teaching at this university, which is renowned for its Philosophy department. Also, it'd just be too painful and scary to contemplate the former. What's painful is that his speech is punctuated by "umms" and "I means" in an attempt to gather his thoughts into a coherent set of ideas and points of relevance. And he seems easily rattled by questions that jump ahead in the progression of the class's forward march. I honestly don't know how you can present yourself in such a way in the hopes of obtaining a new position in such a field. It just doesn't seem like you could and hope to succeed.

One of the general requirements for any undergraduate degree is a course in speech. These courses are usually pretty general in nature and serve little or no purpose other than to make you as a student feel a little more comfortable speaking in front of others. This leads me to suggest that this isn’t enough for anyone who is planning on teaching as a career regardless of level. Professors, old and young, suffer from this type of affliction, and it's likely that some, if not all, of this could be remedied by simply requiring perspective instructors to take a class on how to properly construct a lesson plan, which in turn would require them to perform in front of their peers, thus giving them more experience in front of a crowd.

Overall, the content will make the class valuable, and if the presentation is muddied to some extent by the inadequacies of the instructor, so be it. I'm really powerless to say otherwise. Having been out of class for a few years, it was a shocking reminder of how little patience I have. I'll have to learn to accept the style, but I'll keep on believing that it can be remedied easily.

George: Oh, what's the point? When I like them, they don't like me, when they like me, I don't like them. (Seinfeld, The Old Man)

I don't like her. I mean she's friendly and all and a nice person to talk to at work, but there's just nothing there. Part of me appreciates the notion of a "crush," but at this point I feel that there has to be some reciprocity as well.

I play with some guidelines, not many but some. This one definitely fell into one of those guideline areas: too young. Once you reach a certain point, it's time to simply admire and not delude yourself into thinking that it's possible to make something like that work, that being the younger girl/older guy hookup.

Maybe having said something that I shouldn't have led to this, a barrage of emails along with multiple phone numbers and complaints about being back home with her mom and brother. Surely, you can tell someone that you'll miss seeing them at work and not have some sort of consequences that verge on the bizarre, right?

Immaturity is the only thing I can think of, or the revelation that the last boyfriend she had broke up with her to live a life as a homosexual. (I'm not making that one up.)

During one scene in the film Garden State, Andrew Largeman pontificates on the realities of losing one's sense of "home" after you've moved out and lived in a place of one's own. The idea being, and a timeless one at that, is that you can never really go home again. I don't know how much I really agree with that premise (I don't so much agree with the premise as I know that I understand the notion. I refuse, and perhaps sentimentally so, to relinquish that notion of house and home.), but I did notice another phenomenon recently when I was home for a brief stay in which I think some of the residual effect of this idea of losing home is successfully planted.

Communication between you and your parents can and often is difficult regardless of your relationship with them. What I noticed during this most recent trip, though, is that you can sense that your family adapts, as I'm sure we do as well, to life without you. Behaviors change and voices are altered due to your presence. It's odd because you can feel that there's something of kilter but nothing that would in the least feel threatening or emotionally provocative. It's more often than not just an inkling that not having you around has either freed up a different personality trait in each one of your parents or you are now viewed in terms of being a visitor in every sense of the word (In most cases this would seem to imply an negative connotation, but that's not what I'm driving at. It would seem more likely that now you are viewed as being a visitor only in the sense that you're not staying.) in the home where you grew up. You're still welcome and everything that's theirs is also yours, but you're also likely to witness an evolutionary, perhaps that's being overly dramatic, change.