After one week, I can easily say that community college has been like teaching in two different worlds. One world is a public school and the other is a college. One of my classes that I teach is Math 060 (developmental math), which is extensive review over math basics. Some of the students in this class speak and act very spontaneously and I can see how this type of thinking brings them difficulties in math. One skill in math world is being able to reflect on what is going on. Perhaps this example illustrates that.

I call on a student, who I will call “Jill”, “Jill, is 123,456 divisible by two?” A few other students who are not Jill, gives their input. I say, “Well Jill, the other Jill’s in the class say yes, what do you think?” Just as I finish that sentence, one of the students who gave their input said, “My name ain’t Jill!” I responded with one word, “Exactly.”

So this basically illustrates what I see frequently in this class; a style of thinking where numbers are just said or written down with no reflection. But then this falls perfectly into my style of teaching. I love to ask questions and more questions. I already had a student tell me “Wait, didn’t I just ask you a question and then you asked me a question back?” Oh, the mind games that I get to play with my students are the perfect fuel for my ego.

Another aspect that I like with how this class thinks is how responsive and eager the students are to offer input. I don’t think that I have ever been in a class where so many want to share what their thinking. This openness is great and I hope that it continues. Of course, I could have something to do with how open they are. I only think this because a student told me, on the third day of class, “You look like a student.” This comment opened up a Pandora’s box of how I could reply to this. Yet, I just said, “Thanks. So do you. And are we not all students of life?” Again, just more fun communication with my students. So, I really enjoy this class. Hopefully, I can get them to be thinking like a math star by the end of the summer. Or in other words, hopefully I can program them to start thinking like me!

My first day at the community college went by with flying colors. Normal first day of teaching, which means going through the syllabus and talking about how cool the class will be (and of course putting on little show). One surprise was that I have a student who I taught seven years ago as a ninth grader. I told my second class this story. Then I said to a student who embalms bodies, “So you never know you might run into seven years later. Who knows, maybe you will be embalming my body in seven years!” Also, I had some students, oh how should I say this, that were bit more experienced than me. At first it was some what intimidating being a teacher with classroom of older adults since I have only taught people younger than me. I think my fear was that I wouldn’t be able to relate them due the generation canyon. But that quickly passed and the communication was normal. That is what I like about teaching; I am constantly challenged in trying to communicate and reach a student. I am sure that there will be many stories to report about my teaching this summer. Till then, I am extremely excited to be teaching math, to be receiving a pay check in one week, and to be full time faculty.

So I am now a teacher in a classroom where the scenery is of none that I have seen because certain trees have more rings than me.

I am now on my third day of working at my new jobby job.  No students yet.  This week is the so called “teacher work days”, which is to give teachers time to prepare for their summer courses. I greatly appreciate this because how many other jobs offer preparation days? I don’t think McDonald’s gives their workers days to prepare how to run the drive thru. My teacher schedule this week has been coming in at 8ish and leave 3ish but next week will be different.  My summer teaching schedule involves two classes; one that is from 10 – noon and the other is 7:30-9:30 pm.  This leaves me with a seven hour gap of time that I am trying to figure how to fill.  Here are some options.

1. Drive home and then drive back.  The only thing though is that I would be adding another hour of driving time to my day.  Spending two hours of summer days driving doesn’t sound to appealing.
2. Stay in my office and be a hermit.  Sure, I could be a recluse in my office but I already did that during my graduate time.  Time to move on from being in an office for 8 hours a day.
3. Work on my tan!  Maybe I could hang out on the roof of this building reading some books, drinking tea, and soaking in some rays.  I think that this would get old pretty quick.
4. Take a class here at the Community College.  They do have a wide range of classes to take, maybe I should check out the catalog.
5. Park it!  As in going to hang out at a park where I could hike around, bike some trails, play disc golf, have a picnic with the family, nap under a shady tree, soak my feet in a Creek, etc.  This idea appears to be most like me.
6. Train for an event.  I could take advantage of the college gym here and train for a running event, or a triatholon, or just add muscles to my gangly bird frame.

Do you have any ideas?  If you had to spend seven hours of your day away from your house, then what would you do?  Please leave me your suggestion or comments.  Thanks! 

I think that it was about 12 to 18 months ago that I first used that alias name. My intent was never to have Selfwalker substitute Luke, like a nickname, rather I just like to use it as a pen name. So, sometimes I would turn in papers for my grad classes with Selfwalker in the name slot and obviously I use it in the title of my webpage and blog. Then there are few situations where I have had much fun using this alias. In the faculty lounge, there is a white board and there were numerous times that they announced how a certain student was accepted to a specific school to continue their education or begin employment at a community college. I got that the idea to inform the professors of my acceptance by writing, “Luke has accepted himself for who he is, Sir Selfwalker.” The statement brought a few chuckles. The other time occurred during my graduation ceremony this past Sunday. Each student gave an index card to to the speaker who would then announce the individuals name that was written upon it. Well, my brilliant thought was to write my name as Luke Selfwalker Walsh. I thought that there would be a 50/50 chance that the name would actually be read. There I was up on stage, in front of about a 1,000 people or more, and handed my card over. My smile was from ear to ear, adrenaline was pumping, and the speaker said,

Luke Selfwalker Walsh

After the name was called, I walked across the stage with excitement, stopped to have my masters hood draped over me, and then like Rocky Boboa I exhilarated two pumped fists in the air shouting YES! (In high school I did the moon walk across the stage for those that were not there.) After the ceremony, I had a few Professors, who were shocked that I had got away with it especially since the speaker knew my name, “So just who is Selfwalker? What does it mean?” Also, I had a few people wondering if that was really my middle name! So, yes I did tell them that Selfwalker simply stood for walking with self, ignoring the obvious of how it fulfills my ego by bring more attention to myself. But you may now be wondering, “Well shouldn’t the name be Egowalker instead of Selfwalker?” Sure, yet wearing a mask is fun and then there is always the name my uncle called himself one time, Selfstalker. Oh the fun in naming this human experience.

Oh the power of a credit card! I don’t get my first paycheck, which will be prorated for three weeks, till then end of May. But thanks to my hand dandy credit card and I can begin my spending spree. We are now all set for some very comfy car camping this summer thanks to our new tent, Marmot Halo 6. I believe that Halo is a perfect name because I know that I will be in heaven when I am in it. Okay, so I just had to get that corny statement out of the way. Seriously though, you should check out the link and see the pumpkin orange color, making it look like the carriage from Cinderella. Then of course I just had to buy a new Apple computer, 13″ Black MacBook, and I am still eagerly waiting for its arrival. I have been using the FedEx tracking number obsessively to see where the package is. These two items have been my major purchases so far and with quite a few minor purchases I am sure that I will rack up my credit card account balance on next month’s bill. This has made me wonder if I would be more materialistic if I had more money. Yes, these items have been on my “to buy list” for a long time but then how differently would this list be if I had muy mucho dinero. My negative perception before seems to be that materialistic was a way to be wasteful with money and that those people were buying things, expensive stuff, with the only reason being that it is cool to have in their life. Now, I see myself in their shoes as I obtain a new computer and tent. This leads me to believe that we are all materialistic, whether one gets all of their stuff at a garage sale or on Rodeo drive. Materials add a luxury to life, such as a spoon, couch, iPod, car, house, etc. Therefore, I am going to keep discovering those new materials that bring an excitement to my life, and, at the same time, be consciously aware of the countless luxuries that I already have in my life. Oh, non-material stuff like Love and Family are good too.

As the band Parliment says, “We got the funk”, so did the Walsh’s for a bit. However, our funk was a differnet type of funk. Dirty clothes could not be washed. About a month ago, I posted about the clothes washer leaking.. Yesterday, I decided to make a priority of fixing it. So off to Lowe’s hardware store Charlie and I went. For some reason when I walk through that store I feel that I have a shirt on that reads,

“Just another sucker thinking that he can save a few bucks by fixing it himself.”

Oh well, I left my insecurity on the shelf and found the part I needed. Of course there were two sizes though, 1/2″ and 3/4″. I asked a employee which one should I get and with extreme confidence he said, “90% are fitted for 1/2″. I took his 90% and raised him 10% and felt 100% sure that I was getting the correct part. After more wandering around the isles thinking what other projects I could do, I went home only to find out that the piece I bought was too small. I will let you do the math here: If the two sizes are 1/2″ and 3/4″ and 1/2″ is too small what size should Luke buy? Again that t-shirt image was showing up but with much bolder font. Back at the store, I found out that I bought the 1/2″ inch with small thread and I needed big thread. Finally with the correct part I was able to fix the washer. Yippee! So am I just another sucker at the lollipop factory? Yes, and how sweet it is. Oh, happy National Prayer Day. Perhaps my prayers were answered by plumber God allowing my washer to be fixed. Let’s see what is that Plumber God’s name again…oh yeah thats right Mario!