Teaching is a performance.
That’s why I need to have a roadie.
Bruce Springsteen would never go out on the road without an
accompanying circus of electricians, set technicians, roustabouts and
assistants. Why, then, shouldn’t I have
just one modest minion?
When I taught at Bellevue College, we had modern classrooms
filled with current technology. I
presided over the class from behind a lecturn with controls for an overhead
projector, surround-sound speakers, two computers (a PC and a Mac), and a DVD/VCR
player. I could show movies and YouTube
clips, use PowerPoints and project copies of student essays or internet
articles; I was a wizard conducting a magic show. Problems occasionally arose—the projector’s
light might burn out or the DVD player might fail—but I had technicians waiting
and ready to intervene.
Then I retired and left the academic bubble. I started volunteering to teach classes for
other seniors. My “institution” is a
small, private group with extremely limited resources, so I decided to bring my
own. Confident and proud, I carried my
laptop into the classroom to marry it up to their portable projector and tiny
speakers.
A teacher, especially in the first few class sessions, must
project confidence and competence. In my
current situation, I have to compete with a warm-to-stuffy room and the fact
that I’m stealing time away from afternoon naps (including my own.) These are not an audience conditioned to
consider themselves subordinate to the all-knowing, all-powerful professor;
these are peers, some with degrees every bit as advanced as my own. To makes that all-important first impression,
one requirement is paramount:
The equipment has to work.
So, before I can impress my audience with a nugget of
knowledge or enlist their empathy with a self-disparaging joke, I have to plug
in all the right wires. And I have no
more than five to ten minutes to do it, while people trickle in and watch.
First day, first class:
While the laptop is booting, I search for the USB port on the
projector. None. I finally find a VGA port, but my laptop
doesn’t have a VGA port. Fortunately,
the Center’s Director has an adaptor that converts VGA to HDMI, and my laptop does have one of those. Problem solved.
Except it’s already seven minutes into the class. And the projector doesn’t project.
I unplug and re-plug.
Nothing. I reboot the
computer. The projector shows a blank
blue square of light, nothing more.
Eleven minutes into the class, and I haven’t even introduced myself yet. The Director comes in to help. She unplugs and re-plugs, and crawls on the
floor to check all the cables. The
projector projects the same blank blue square.
Eighteen minutes into the class.
I give up and go to “Plan B”, improvising a lecture out of
hastily-recalled lectures past.
In the week before the next class, the Director experiments
with the setup and eventually finds that one must start the projector before booting the computer. Problem solved.
Confidence renewed, I open the next class session with a
streaming TED talk off the Internet. The
image is excellent, given the fact that there’s no way to darken the room and I
have to project onto a beige wall because the only screen is in use by another
class. But hey—we’re all adults
here. We can adapt.
Except there’s no sound.
The speakers are properly plugged in and powered, but they make no
noise. Plan B.2.
My competence under serious challenge, I buy speakers of my
own and set them up at home. These are
silent too. A lengthy bout of
befuddlement ensues. Ultimately, I think
to check the “Devices” list and find that I need an updated Sound Card
driver. These are supposed to update
automatically but somehow haven’t. I
update, and I have sound.
Third class. The
entire plan for this day is to show a video.
My laptop doesn’t have a DVD drive, but I have an external one. My audience watching expectantly, my computer
screen projecting onto the wall, I pop the DVD into the drive and wait for
“Autoplay”. Nothing happens. I go to Windows Explorer, find the external
drive, and click on it. Nothing. I then discover that I can’t locate an icon
for the long-established Windows Media program.
That, I discover later, is because Microsoft eliminated it from Windows
10. Fortunately, I have other Media
Player programs installed, so I open them one-by-one. None of them access the DVD drive. It turns out that Microsoft decided that
nobody uses DVDs any longer, so they removed the ability to play them
entirely. They are happy to sell me an app that will play DVDs, but
it’s no longer standard equipment, and reviewers almost universally pan
it. Plan B.3.
Next class will be class #4, halfway through an 8-week
term. I’m confirmed in my ineptitude in
front of the class, and I’ve already used up all the material I had planned to
present systematically throughout the term. But I actually have students who
arrive early and enthusiastically.
They’re eager to see what happens next.
I’m beginning to rethink this whole retirement thing.
