Teaching Class

This Week

I helped teach my abnormal psychology class. It was a ton of fun! I had no idea that I would be teaching a portion of the class! So heres the story.

Yesterday morning in class, the teacher wasnt feeling so great. She said "okay, who actually wants to listen to me talk about this powerpoint today? Its not that interesting." Which is highly unusual. So she spent a few minutes talking with all of us and then one guy said "ill teach from the powerpoint". She handed him the projector remote and off he went, using the teachers powerpoint! He spoke for a few minutes, then another girl wanted to jump in so the two of them switched.

5-10 minutes later she asked the class if anyone wanted to take her place, I raised my hand. Next thing I knew I was talking in front of a classroom!

After 5-10 I asked the class who wanted to jump in next? No one raised their hand. The two people before me said "you're doing great this is interesting". I tried a few more times, but before it was all said and done I had taught the class until the very end! I stood in front of a classroom for around an hour going off the teachers power point, talking away! Asking students questions! The teacher had a few videos in the power point for us to watch, so I played those (with a little help from the teacher). At the end of each, I would slide back the video and hold it at a still of the main character from the video and ask the class "okay what'd you notice", which is exactly what our teacher asks when shes teaching. And for the most part the regular talking students played along and made their commentary and pointed out their observations, it was great! (normally our class is very quiet, only a few people are brave enough to speak for some reason)

When I ran out of slides and had no more to say, I asked the students to turn in their attendance notecards and let them know they were free to go.

And then they did it.

I couldnt believe I had just spent my morning teach an upper level psychology class. The class was on ADHD, autism, and Aspergers. 

Because of my work, I have one on one experience with children with all of the above. So I was able to put in my own experience into the class and add to the teachers power point, and I was surprised at how much attention they all payed to me. The teacher is a fantastic teacher, one of my most favorite ever, its easy for her to keep the classes attention (which in any class may not be easy), but I kept them awake LOL

The teacher had a slide labelled "vaccines do not cause autism", I said oh look, we arent going to be talking about this subject in todays class-then I skipped to the next slide.

That is much too complex and deep of a subject to speak on from just one slide. After the class I spoke to the teacher and asked her if she had actually planned any bit of this, and she said nope it was all on the fly and because the first guy offered to teach.

I told her she was brilliant, she was able to sit and watch class while the students taught eachother LOL

I asked her her thoughts on how I did, she told me I did great and she laughed about the vaccine slide. I talked to her briefly on some of the cases ive met where children have gone non verbal after their shots and we both agreed that their are a lot of factors involved.

All in all it was a fun experience, the other two students that taught first, would chime in and help me out and add their thoughts and what they noticed (which was very much appreciated). The first guy at one point went online to find out more information on one of the ladies we watched a video on, who was an adult with Aspergers who was on the X Factor(i think). So he jumped in and informed me and the rest of the class of who this lady was in a bit more detail.'

The second teacher, she would jump in and share some of her experiences during different parts, especially if I asked any questions. She kept the crickets silent for me! I think the three of us made a great team.

Looking Back

Okay so sure, teaching people is cool but WHY is this really all that interesting?

A year ago my anxiety was so bad that I could barely talk to other people, and I almost couldnt talk to strangers at all. Talking to a big group for one would have been out of the picture, for two doing it as a surprise and impromptu without preparation-double anxiety.

PANDAS/strep changed my psychological and social life big time. I stopped connecting with people and I became very anti social, and social anxiety was crippling. You might could even say nightmare inducing. Something big like public speaking would have left me a shaking nervous, stuttering mess last year and the year before. And I probably would have left after class, gotten into my car, and reclined while my body shook and cried until I could drive home. 

But no, I did it without thinking twice and I enjoyed it! For me, this is a big personal victory.

It helped that this was a subject that I have personal experience with. OCD plays a lot into people with Autism spectrum, they tend to have a lot of fixations. Well heck I know what thats like! So it made it easier for me to talk about and put into my own words instead of just reading it off the slide.