Paideia from A Student Teacher’s Perspective

What’s it like being a Paideia teacher? The first two words that come to mind are “tremendous fun!” I taught “How To Fly A Plane (And Other Aviation Fun Facts),” a one-hour romp through all things aviation, and I had an amazing and exhilarating time. (If you would like to know anything about aviation, feel free to email me and I’d be overjoyed to answer all your questions!) I thoroughly enjoyed getting the chance to rant about a passion for an hour while simultaneously giving peers an opportunity to learn about something they might not have otherwise gotten to learn about! I love that Paideia is a one-of-a-kind opportunity to informally explore subjects that are off the beaten path, giving quirky interests a place to shine when they might not otherwise get a chance to be explored in traditional classes. I’m proud and honored to have had the chance to participate in Paideia and contribute my own little bit of esoteric nerdery to Reed’s tradition of, well, celebrating esoteric nerdery and how it can be both educational and entertaining.

But enough with the cliche blanket statements of positivity. My Paideia teaching experience was also hectic, fast-paced, and simultaneously satisfying but leaving me excited for more. Most of all, it was chock-full of weird, wonderful, and wacky unexpected surprises. And yes, above all it was fun, every minute of it!

Let’s start at the beginning. I was pleasantly surprised by the Paideia teacher experience even before I submitted the sign-up form! In addition to things of a logistical nature, such as requested budget and days you are available, the questions on the form included the more open-ended prompts of “What do you hope to contribute to the Reed Community through your class?” and “What excites you about teaching a Paideia class?” To be honest, I had not been expecting to have to answer such deep and thoughtful questions on what I had naively assumed would be a simpler logistics-centered form, but as it turned out, the joke was on me. I was delighted to ponder the questions and I set about crafting what was probably an overly long answer! I ended up writing a total of 1,105 words in response—ironically, more than triple what I wrote for my 348-word summary of a hypothetical Paideia class in my application to Reed, which had been about Ancient Egypt (tagline: “come for the canopic jars, stay for the sarcophagi”).

The scheduling process pleasantly surprised me with how streamlined it was: just submit the one form, and then the Paideia Committee gets back to you with (hopefully) all the nitty-gritty details worked out. I can’t speak for everyone else who taught a Paideia class this year, and I didn’t request a budget, so I have no idea how convoluted or streamlined that process was, but I definitely got the sense that the Paideia Committee had their sh*t together. I had some convoluted requests, one about the room I was presenting in and the other about what day and time my class was to be held, and the Paideia Committee successfully fulfilled both of my requests, even replying to my emails during a time when they were officially out of office for winter break. I got the sense that they were efficient,well-organized and knew what they were doing. The only logistical issues I noticed as a Paideia attendee were ones that could not have been foreseen, such as a classroom being too small for all the attendees who showed up last-minute.

Anticipating that such last-minute snafus might arise, but not wishing to turn anyone away either, I had included an optional sign-up form with my Paideia class listing, so people could tell me which sub-topics of aviation they were interested in, and so I could get a sense of how many people might be attending my class. Let me tell you, it was so much fun to watch it fill up with responses! A few days after the schedule went out, my email inbox got a notification that someone had filled it out. It made my day. And then there were more. And more. And even more. They just kept coming in, and making my day every time. I was delighted beyond words to read them! 16 people replied in all, and even more people ended up attending. It was a fun challenge to design my presentation materials around what people wanted to learn about, especially when “what people wanted to learn about” kept changing from hour to hour. Fortunately for me, the most selected option was “ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING!!!”

Of course, the unexpected always happens no matter how much you prepare for it. The huge amount of attendees at my class was the main thing I didn’t anticipate! True, I had indeed figured out a way to anticipate that somewhat ahead of time with my sign-up form, but it was still a welcome surprise. It made for a far less personal vibe than I had hoped, but I’ll take it as a compliment that so many people were interested! Despite arriving well in advance, I also misread my room assignment and set up in the wrong room by mistake. Rushing around dealing with that snafu meant I didn’t have time after all for my last-minute idea of cutting out fun facts and taping them underneath people’s seats to be revealed during a “safety demonstration.” Another impromptu idea did work out after all: it suddenly struck me as I was setting up to play the theme music from the Top Gun movies as people entered, and luckily the AV gods smiled on my idea and it went off without a hitch. Mostly, the unplanned aspects ended up canceling each other out. I had imagined that people would ask questions and I planned out extra time for that, but I got fewer questions than I thought I would. By coincidence, the extra time as a result of fewer questions enabled me to get through my entire prepared materials, meaning there was less work for me later on when I put together an email that covered all the topics and questions we hadn’t gotten to. In short, not everything went according to plan, but everything worked out and it was a whole lot of fun.

All in all, it was a very positive experience, one that combined the refreshingly challenging task of being a teacher and the comfortingly familiar side of basically ranting about my passion for an hour. The joy involved definitely outweighed any small snags. My favorite part of being a Paideia teacher was seeing just how many other Reedies were interested in learning about my obscure interest! So if you’ve got a passion that you love talking about, no matter how obscure or uncategorizable, I encourage you to be bold and share it in the unique space of Paideia—who knows how many other like-minded Reedies you might find? You might just be surprised. As I wrote last November in the Google Form to sign up, I hope my enthusiasm for the subject I taught will inspire other Reedies to learn about it, or even teach a Paideia class themselves on it—or better yet, explore and teach a class on whatever subject they're passionate about!