Take two

My last post, in which I expressed a bit of anxiety over the quietness of the second section of my Calc I class, elicited a number of comments (on Facebook, sadly, and not on the blog post itself) from former students, most of whom insisted, more or less, that I'm worried about nothing much to worry about.

The gist of their comments is this: first-year students are first-year students. They're unsure of themselves, and they're scared of being wrong in front of one another. As one of my ex-students said, reflecting on his experiences during freshman year (in which he took Calc I and Calc II with me), "I didn't want to be wrong or make a mistake." Another (Linear Algebra, Fall 2006): "they're still stuck with a bit of that high school fear of judgement and embarrassment in class."

One of the upsides to the level of openness I cultivate in my classrooms is that I'm intensely aware of how all of my students are doing, and this awareness helps me to be sure I'm getting them everything they need to succeed.

On the other hand, one of the one of the downsides to the level of openness I cultivate in my classrooms is that I'm intensely aware of how all of my students are doing, making it very hard for me to leave someone behind if I sense they're struggling.

Sometimes, I've just got to move on.

This might be one of those times.