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

Last time I was talking about the “How to Question Students” seminar: We also discussed the distinction between high level questions and low level questions, the lecturer’s own simplified categorization (as opposed to some “industry standard” descriptions) of the types of inquiries we make of the students.

Some random tidbits I also caught from the speaker (I hope it’s not contagious): “A speaker does not necessarily necessitate a listener.” (How true!)

“If you listen, you will learn.” (If not anything directly, at least in terms of analysis and discrimination – about what you hear).

“There’s a better answer,” is not something the students like to hear.

For the first meeting of my mechanics lecture classes during the eleventh week of classes, we took up problems using tension in two dimensions. Now the students who were absent during the first part of the discussion suffered the consequences, because I kept reminding them that the little steps in their solutions while they were answering were already taken up the previous session, such as the fact that tension is always away from the object along the line of the rope, wire, chain, cable or whatever.

There was a limit that I unconsciously imposed on our coverage though. I only took up examples where the object is stationary. In other words, the acceleration, despite the fact that there are two expressions for the motion along the horizontal and the vertical, are both zero.

In the problems we solved in class though, they still had to know when to be able to use the solutions of linear equations in two variables, although one of the more complicated questions we took up had four equations of summation of forces, of which only three were used in direct substitution after getting the correct free body diagrams.

At least they didn’t request for a recitation board work anymore, even though that would have been additional points for some of them. There simply wasn’t time.

After those classes was our recollection, not for the first time having sharing questions on the topic of one’s favorite teacher as a student, and how I would rate the past year for me.

In the evening we had the first part of our workshop, which was the discussion of the faculty manual. The majority of the talk was on the benefits between the full time, the half time and the part time faculty.

There was also clarification of the total number of units a teacher is assigned per term, how under loading (and “compensation” during the succeeding term) is discouraged, the terms of optional and forcible retirement, as well as the compensation packages for outside scholarships and discounts for having the children of faculty study in the school.

Finally, I was asked to suggest having a thirteenth and a half-month bonus when a teacher has reached five years of teaching instead of waiting for a minimum of ten years.

On the next day we had our discussions of the good and bad things we have noticed in the school so far, as well as the potential pros and cons, which, unfortunately, degenerated into personal grievances instead of how the parents and applying students may view us negatively.

It was only afterwards that I realized we did not get to talk about one of the things that my fellow faculty association representatives consulted with me before, which is a basic list of requirements for faculty awards.

Next time I’ll talk about the rest of my eleventh week classes. For now, class dismissed.