an odd question and a picture

[TheLorax]

I know that no one on this site knows me or is under any obligation whatsoever to respond to this in any sensible fashion, but I’m asking it anyway.

For a brief bit of background I have signed up to teach a class at a community college here in town. I’ve been kicking around the idea of teaching since grad school, but this is my first foray into the profession. Not that I am normally risk adverse, but I am dipping my toes into the cold, icy waters by taking on exactly one night school course.

It’s my way of converting what has been a career rife with layoffs, transfers, and the current dead end office job that I took because I needed a job into a master plan to attain a wide variety of experience in the profession so that I can bring more of a real world perspective into the teaching profession.

Doesn’t that sound good?

Also, it has been my lifelong dream to be eccentric. The way I figure it, there are only two ways to achieve true eccentricity as opposed to being “odd”. One is to be shamelessly wealthy and the other is to be a college professor. I have long since given up on shameless wealth so I had to opt for curtain #2 into order to achieve my goal.

I find that I am very concerned about how well I perform as a professor in this first class. I’m sure that I will learn and adapt my methods to what works, but if I do this, I want to be the best damn professor these people have ever had and I fear that I may be short changing the first class or two while I experiment with getting my swerve on. (so to speak) I am staying very mindful of the fact that if nothing else, every single person sitting in that classroom this fall will be there to improve their lives. I respect that and I don’t want to let them down.

yes yes yes idealism that will be squelched by the system but allow me my loftiness

What I would like to know is if there is any one thing good or bad that a professor you had did that stuck in your mind?

example: returned tests quickly, learned everyone’s names, performed slight of hand tricks (ok I can’t do that, but I can juggle)

Also, what should I have them call me? I am an informal person by nature (cough hippie cough) and I don’t think I would be comfortable going by my last name. I’m pretty sure that there will be people in the class older than I am and for damn sure I am not comfortable with someone older than I am calling me by my last name. On the other hand, I have heard noise from a few people that having my students call me by my first name will undermine the respect level in the classroom. I don’t so much buy that because out in the business world where I normally live everything is first name basis and I don’t see any loss of respect as a result of this. I may just go with “professor chaos”.

Sorry, this is getting egregiously long.

Anyway, as a means of comic relief, here is a picture I drew. I started drawing about 6 months ago when I let some friends convince me that “anyone” could learn to draw. This is my version of The Portrait of Dr. Gachet originally painted by that hack VanGogh. The important thing is that I enjoy it and it keeps me from snacking on crap I shouldn’t be eating in front of the tv at night.