I won’t repeat what I said before about the importance of having some training in pedagogy before you teach if you want to become a good educator. I now want to address the issue of how not knowing anything about the methodology of teaching makes one a bad colleague to one’s fellow educators.
What you always hear during methodology of teaching courses is that you have to make sure you don’t invade the students’ time. You have to arrive for your class when it’s scheduled (and not 15 minutes before) and finish the class when it should end (and not 5 minutes later.) If there is a break in a longer session you are giving, you need to leave the classroom. Students need that time to themselves without you hovering in the background.
Of course, teachers want to have 5-10 minutes before the beginning of class to connect the equipment, open the notes, arrange the materials on the desk, etc. However, you can’t do that at the expense of students and colleagues.
To give you an example, the moment I finish my lecture on Hispanic Civilization, I have the prof who teaches right after me enter the classroom, plant herself next to me and start placing her cell phone, notes and textbooks on the table. The same table where I still have all my stuff spread out.
I never detain students a minute longer than the scheduled class time. To the contrary, I always finish 1-2 minutes earlier to be able to gather my stuff, pack up, and leave in peace. If I have to break my lecture mid-sentence to stick to the schedule, that’s what I do. This means that there are still 10 minutes between my class and the next scheduled class after I go away. I need to be able to take a couple of minutes to get my things, log off the computer, talk to students who come up to me, etc. It’s important that I do it without an inconsiderate colleague breathing down my neck.
Dear colleagues: you only need to be in the classroom during scheduled class time. This is what you are paid for. Coming to the classroom early and staying there late doesn’t make you a better teacher. It makes you an inconsiderate professor and colleague.
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