Les Hannah, day 9, part 1

This was my first day of teaching at Esbjerg Handelskole. Well, it was not supposed to be; it was supposed to be a day of planning my schedule and I was to begin teaching tomorrow; however, the buzz about the school and my physical presence made it nearly impossible to do anything but head straight for the classroom.

 I need here to revisit one of the clichés we English teachers tend to warn our students about: “stands out like a sore thumb.” I shall have to trace the etymology of that phrase to see why it is not, “stands out like a Cherokee in Denmark.” I was clearly one of a kind within that school. But that is not the point of this entry.

The point is I was back in a classroom, my natural setting. It was like released a rehabilitated bird back into the wild. This is the first time this semester I had been at the front of the classroom. Because I knew this Fulbright assignment was coming I was deliberately not scheduled to teach anything at NSU, so on paper it looks as though I was doing nothing at my own University, but those who know me know that is not so. I was very busy. So much so that this Fulbright somewhat snuck up on me. I alluded to that in a previous entry, and it holds true still. But it sure felt good to be back doing what I know I am good at – teaching.

I went before three classes today. The system here is different, of course, from an American university, and it is different even from American high schools. Here, the students stay in the same room all day and the teachers travel around from room to room. I also noticed that the rooms had bean bags where students would lie about during the delivery of the lessons. This is typical and not at all alarming to the teachers.

These classes meet for 80 minutes at a time, which is close to a two-day-per-week schedule at NSU, so I am a bit used to this. The teachers told me that if I wanted a break during the class period simply stop and give a break, but being somewhat familiar with this type of format the 80 minutes was really nothing. And it went by quickly. The students in the first class were a bit intimidated I think. After all, these were first-year students, similar I suppose to Freshmen in a university setting, and the first-year students are usually a bit more reserved when it comes to certain things – like speaking up in class. One young lady asked most of the questions in this class, so she drove the discussions; that’s fine; she asked good questions. Other students I called upon; I took command of the classroom, which is my style. Take charge and own it for (in this case) 80 minutes.