Sleeping Students, Dog Penis Fungi & More from Intern Isaac

I was teaching a college level class the other day when one fella rolled up his jacket, made a pillow, took some sleep supplements, and went right to sleep.  I thought, ‘Son; do you know what an ego blow that is to a teacher?’  But I did something else of course.

For five weeks I’m doing classroom teaching.  This is new to me. Most of the teaching I’ve ever done is informal; i.e. I look for lessons to share while I’m gardening.   For example this week, I taught a garden client about the fascinating world of a fungus called Phallus de Chien  (dog penis mushrooms).  Obviously grateful for this informal presentation, she sent a quick text and said, ‘Can you just get it out of my hydrangeas?” Well, she’s paying me so she doesn’t have to be excited about learning.

But these formal teaching gigs are all volunteer work.  So I want the students to pay attention.  No one buys my gas or ticket to Haiti, no one makes money for my IRA while I’m standing up in a college class and no church or non-profit sponsors me. So y’all better listen!  I do these gigs to share.

But I also teach to meet and learn from young people in my field.  Even the hung-over ones.  Sure, I was tempted to walk back and drip some coffee down that sleeping boys neck and yell ‘You’ve won the lottery by being here!  Do you know how many people in the world want this?” But I thought to myself, “Dude.  Chill. Remember your first semester in Clemson? You slept right through it.”  But something will spark an interest and one day any person in this class might be teaching — in the field or in the classroom.

NOTES; 1.  While I was in Clemson last week, I did a pre-recorded radio segment about why I’m going to teach and volunteer in an agricultural school in Haiti.   You can here that Monday Jan. 20  on Clemson University Your Day radio on SC NPR stations.

2.  While I was teaching at Spartanburg Community College, I was swollen with pride to see our intern, Isaac Kirwan in one of the classes.  Isaac is working hard to pay for school and definitely is in the front row, awake and engaged in class.  Read Isaac’s essay in the last blog post and you’ll know he was alert and engaged.  And here is a new short post from Isaac:

Nyquil: A Love Story When I was younger, getting sick wasn’t a big deal. You just didn’t go to school and come back in a day or two and make up a few homework assignments and a test. Nothing major. Now that I’m growing up and still getting used to balancing going to school full time, working about 30 hours at my “part-time” job, and a life, I have come to realize how stressful it is to get sick. The worst part for me though is that I’m missing school. Today is the 4^th day of the spring semester and I’m already liking it better than the last. In my design class, we are actually going to be designing some pretty major projects in Spartanburg, and hopefully I’ll be good enough to have one or more of my designs used! Right before Spring Break, we’ll also be taking a trip to see Michael Dirr down in Athens, and it honestly has me a little nervous with him being so big in the industry. I’ll definitely be updating on my school life as we get deeper into the semester, but in the meantime, don’t be like me and stay healthy.