I (heart) my summer classes

I totally wish there were a way to "infect" my regular-semester classes with the sort of enthusiasm and intellectual curiosity my summer classes have.

I'm particularly talking about the non-majors class. Frequently, the Ecology class is pretty good (though I do get difficult people in it from time to time). But the non-majors class tends to be night and day from regular semester to summer.

(An aside - that is one of the reasons why I've stopped a lot of the beating-up-on-myself for student enthusiasm not being higher some regular semesters. It's NOT 100% the part of the teacher to generate enthusiasm! I teach the class much the same in the summer, and I have students asking questions and discussing and sharing stories that relate to the topic and going into the activities with enthusiasm - and during the regular semester, I often get a class that Will. Not. Open. Their. Mouths. And it's very frustrating to try to teach to what feels like a brick wall).

But this group is so much fun. They enjoy the demonstrations (even ones my regular semester classes called "childish"). They do well on the tests. They're interesting and they're interested.

I just wish they did evaluations for summer classes; I'd be willing to bet my evaluations are higher in the summer.

One thing summer teaching does for me is it allows me to refute the little inner critic that grows in my mind during the regular semester, the inner critic that tells me "if you weren't so boring, they'd respond more favorably" or "you just don't have the knack for teaching; that's why the students are so disengaged."