No curtain calls in academe

Now here's the downside of spending a whole weekend putting together new teaching materials, as I did recently: When I was done giving this massive brilliant presentation in my Florida Lit class yesterday, I looked at my students and saw the same blank looks I see most days and I wondered Why aren't they applauding?

I didn't waste much time wondering, though, because of course they're not applauding: I've just given them a whole bunch of new stuff to learn, and even if the material was accompanied by photographs and engaging stories, it's still work. I wouldn't expect a child to applaud a new list of household chores even if it was beautifully formatted in rhyming couplets and accompanied by fireworks, so why would I expect my students to applaud my little academic song-and-dance?

But I performed so well!

Right, and there's the problem: this lecture was pretty much a one-person performance, without much participation by students except for note-taking (and, in one case, sleeping). I don't often teach that way, but we were starting a new unit and I needed to provide some necessary context and introduce essential concepts that will inform our discussion, and while I can congratulate myself on presenting it in an interesting way, it was still 40 minutes of me standing in front of the class yammering away.

I didn't stand still, of course. I'm not capable of talking for more than a minute without waving my arms around and moving around the room, which may be why I was so exhausted at the end. At one point I used the word "peripatetic" and, suspecting that my students would find it unfamiliar, I said, "I shall now become peripatetic right before your very eyes," and I did. And then of course I defined the word.

After the lecture I put my students to work applying some of the concepts to their reading assignment, which worked well enough, and then they were out the door and I moved on to the next class, but all afternoon I felt a lack, a sense of longing for something I'd lost without even know what was missing. After all that work and an exhausting performance, I'd really like a round of applause, a pat on the back, or even a small nod indicating a modicum of understanding. 

Instead, I sit in my office facing a pile of papers to grade and I take a moment to tell myself Well done, you. Now get back to work. Accompanied by the sound of one  hand clapping.