Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

It’s the first day of the new term. I’ve already met two of the five classes I have for this trimester: Math 1 and Trigonometry, both of which have, so far, less than twenty students each. If there will be additions to that, I’d expect that they wouldn’t make the class go beyond thirty.

But before I discuss the details of today, there is still last Saturday’s classroom management seminar to get out of the way.

The speaker, Mr. Garcia, probably doesn’t remember (and I didn’t remind him), but I had taken his seminar already a few years ago, albeit a short version that only lasted for one-and-a-half hours. And he did go over some of those same points again in the middle of everything else he discussed.

First he talked about the three V’s of presentation: visual, vocal and verbal.

Visual is not only about how the teacher looks, but also how the teacher moves his or her hands (mostly while lecturing) and walks or even sits.

Vocal is voice quality, which is either nasal, throaty or from the diaphragm. For those who have been teaching less than five years, he recommended practicing speaking from the diaphragm. For those who have been teaching for more than that though, he said that these people have already developed their “muscles” for speaking, no matter where their voice is coming from, so, unless the students (or the evaluators) really complain that the lecturer’s voice cannot be heard, there is no need to change what they have already gotten used to.

He also showed us the horizontal pencil test of finding out whether a teacher is opening his or her mouth too much while speaking, noting some of what he termed “old school” newscasters. I don’t know how this is affected by what some hearing-impaired people say about giving them difficulty at lip-reading though.

Verbal is the content of what the teacher says. This one he could not go much into because we were of different disciplines attending, from scientific, mathematical, engineering and programming to communication, literature, and religion.

He also defined four types of teachers: the disciplinarian, the buddy, the out-of-this-world and the firm (but fair) one. Given twelve questions on how we stood in certain classroom situations, I’m close to being firm but fair (12 out of 15) but “far” from the other three (8 out of 15). I was the only one whose two highest scores weren’t a combination of any two though.

I will have to think more on if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

He also gave us some acronyms (a teaching mnemonic I have yet to use). One was S.T.Y.L.E. This stands for Sincerity, Technique, You, Language and Energy. Another was D.A.C., or Diagnose, Adjust and Create. There was also A.R.A., meaning Acquisition, Retention and Application.

Lastly he asked us to remember the 3 “Ups.” He said a teacher must learn when to stand up, speak up and when to shut up. He says that the last is the most difficult because it requires sensitivity to when the students are no longer receptive to the lecture, or when they have something they believe they want to say that is important.

And at this point is when I’ll shut up and continue next time.