Relief.

I have to tell you a secret about a course- I have blogged about this course before. That blog post complains about students from another department, but I am happy to report that this year they are really good and engaged. I have also changed my attitude to where I really enjoy teaching them. Hooray for victories!

This blog post is about the same course, but a different attitude problem of mine. In this course, the other faculty member has the majority of the course, becuase the course is designed for hir majors. However, that other instructor is not really trained in this subject. Despite hir best efforts at studying and preparing, the lectures (in my mind) reveal the lack of training. He/she sat through all my lectures, and now I feel obliged to sit through hirs, and frankly, I find it painful. Mistakes, lack of full understanding of the topic, intellectual short-cuts... "farming out" topics to marginally-related videos. Cringe, cringe, cringe. I have my twice-weekly vents to my husband (who is also in the same field as this course) and he listens carefully- and repeatedly entreats me to just vent to him and keep my mouth shut otherwise. He's right. Oops, blog!

This is probably a small-PUI problem: reaching too far in the generalist domain. My maternity leaves have caused my department to temporarily reach also, but I have a lot of confidence in my colleagues' competence, so THAT has never bothered me.

Today my co-teacher said, I wanted to tell you in person before you hear otherwise: I'm leaving. I'm going to another institution where I can teach graduate students in my field. I've been thinking about it for a while, and I just don't want to teach courses like [ours] for which I'm not adequately trained.

I will miss my colleague because he/she is a very, very enjoyable person. But I feel relief in two ways: 1. the course could be taught by someone more qualified, and 2. My deep dark secret wasn't so deep and dark after all!