Thursday, January 17, 2008

I had another anxiety dream. The Blackboard and blended learning thing must be really getting to me! This one was more weird. I was in a classroom with a full class of students. The room had a glass wall on one side, across from my desk and behind the rows of student desks, that looked out on a courtyard. It was almost like a sun room. I'm thinking it was some strange combination of my high school (which had rooms that were on a center courtyard, although the wall and windows were institutional, not at all like a sun room) and a historic house. The room itself was a typical classroom, but smaller than usual. Some unknown professor came from the courtyard and opened a glass door that was on sun room side of the classroom. He invited my students to come and listen to his lecture - on something (he said, but I don't remember). It wasn't especially interesting sounding, but about a third to a half of my students immediately jumped up and left. They sort of looked at me to see my reaction on their way out. I didn't tell them it was OK, I kind of just stood there, helpless. The remaining students didn't go, although some were standing, hesitating, but you could tell almost all of them wanted to go, even the ones who were still sitting and facing me. Whether they were actually interested in listening to his lecture, or if they intended to bolt once they got "permission" to leave, was not clear. I turned from helpless into some kind of caricature of a school marm, angry, threatening, violated. The only thing I could relate to this experience was the occasional instructor who has the class prior to mine and continues teaching until ten minutes into my class, or the few who arrive ten minutes early and act like I should dismiss my class because they want the room. But even that isn't as bad as this dream was!

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