teaching story

Lots and lots of hilarious things happen when I'm teaching. Did I ever tell you the story about the trashcan? It has to be acted out so I can't relate it very well here. Anyway, I had picked out two topics to use in my classes today. I teach a lot of sections of the same class every semester so the class and I develop different topics each time so that I don't go crazy with boredom. On the way to the class I had an idea for a way better topic and used that for the first class. I saved one of the other ideas for the second class.

I began by asking if the students read the student newspaper (a few did--fewer than I expected) and then told them that I read it pretty much every day. I think of it as one of my duties as an outreach li-berrian. Then I told them about an interesting article I'd read yesterday and how it got me thinking about this topic in general. I asked the students how they'd develop that idea into a thesis and we started batting around ideas. Then one student said, "Maybe I can help you. I'm the one who wrote that article."

Seriously, what are the chances?