The Learning Channel

I really should be studying. I really, REALLY should! I'm writing my first exam on Thursday morning and I have a nasty feeling that it's going to be a killer. It's on psychoanalytic theory - in other words, good ol' Freud and his successor, Melanie Klein. If you're struggling to remember what their respective claims to fame are, Freud is the psychoanalyst with the cigar who sees sex and phallic symbols in everything (except perhaps his own cigar) and Klein is the lady psychoanalyst who sees breasts ("good" and "bad" breasts, at that) in everything and who presented the utterly ridiculous theory of "womb envy" to counter Freud's ideas about penis envy.*

*please note that this is a gross simplification, and one which will have be shot by the Wits psychology department.

Honours has been really interesting so far - assuming that interesting is a euphemism for stressful, occasionally soul-destroying and frustrating, as well as fun, psychosis-inducing and generally chaotic. I'm really enjoying it. In fact, I wish that I had more time to enjoy it, because it's rushing past so quickly. The first semester is practically over, and I taught my last RDA tut on Friday. RDA has been an interesting experience (in the less euphemistic usage of "interesting"). I really didn't want to tutor it initially, because I wasn't confident in my ability to teach stats. Give me an ANOVA equation to work out and I'm happy, but don't ask me to explain how to do it! The psych department ignored my pleas and so I ended up tutoring 2 classes of about 25 second and third year students on Wednesday and Friday afternoons. And I've learned a lot:

1) it is possible to tutor your way through something you don't completely understand yourself, while appearing to be a receptacle of knowledge for the subject. It really helps if your students don't know enough themselves to be able to argue with you on the more technical aspects.

2) always label your overheads. I once confused the entire class by putting up overhead #3 before overhead #2. I had taken pain-killers as well, so I was a little slow on the uptake.

3) never take pain-killers before tutoring

4) don't bother asking your students to write down their email addresses and contact details. They will be illegible and 78% of your emails will bounce.

5) never underestimate how silly students can be. From the ones who thought they got a formula sheet in the test (they're allowed to bring in their own crib sheet, with anything - including worked examples - on it) to those who only write their initials on their test paper and detach all 13 pages from one another for no apparent reason.

6) always be suspicious of the student who comes to both your tuts for no apparent reason, who sits right in front of you not doing his work and who asks to borrow your third year textbook. Be very suspicious.

7) never end up tutoring someone who you were in high school with, and who is now friends with you on Facebook. The night before your tut, you will end up having the following conversation on Facebook Chat:

Peter: do we have stats tom? i mean a tut. i mean a tut
Candice: Yes.
Peter: really. last day of term and we have a tut. have you no heart?
Candice: The RDA department have no heart.
Peter: no candice if you had one you be 'sick' and cancel it
Candice: Not a chance. I love my class too much
Peter: no you dont.
Candice: Shh... Don't tell anyone
Peter: but i know
Candice: I'm okay with that. :)
Peter: so we seriously have a tut
Candice: We SERIOUSLY have a tut and you SERIOUSLY need to be there!
Peter: why capitals. are you computer shouting?
Candice: Yes, I am computer shouting!
Peter is offline.

8) and finally, never underestimate the extent to which everything that can go wrong, will go wrong. On Wednesday, Granville and I walked to the OLS building to tutor. Granville's projector didn't work, so he went to borrow the psych department's portable one, but the office was closed. So, we went back to OLS and borrowed the projector (desk and all) from the venue next door. Then, Granville realised that he'd forgotten his overhead slides at home, along with the examples for the tut, so there was really no point in having borrowed the overhead. He had to photocopy my examples and wrote them up on the board (again). Nikki then also discovered that her projector was broken, but some technical genius in her class fixed it before she went to borrow Granville's overhead. My own tut class then succeeded in confusing themselves and me about how to rank non-parametric data. Argh!!!

I will miss tutoring, but fortunately next quarter, we tutor in pairs! I can't wait!