Nerves

I had a colleague observe my teaching the other day.

And I was nervous, really nervous.  And when I'm nervous, I talk about 20 miles a minute, and I'm a fairly fast talker anyway, especially for this part of the country.

I was nervous despite the fact that there's nothing big at stake and that my colleague is basically friendly and decent.

And now what I'd really like is for my colleague to say something really supportive, but nothing.  And in my mind, it's getting worse and worse.

So, I taught this class, and it wasn't one of my best classes, but it also wasn't one of the worst classes.


But it's a really good reminder, as I visit colleagues' classes, to think about how it feels to be observed, especially since a lot of the observations I do have much more at stake.