Victorianitas

My students spent most of this morning's class talking to each other. I love it when this happens; they pick up the discussion and run with it, and I just referee and gently swat them back onto track occasionally. And they're so polite about it, too. All "No, I see what you're saying, and I respect that, but where I'd disagree is..." and "Yeah, I do think that's valid, I just think we need to take this into account as well." I wish I knew what kind of things triggered this so I could set it going in every class - while I'd like to claim it's all due to my teaching, it's really the students who deserve the credit for this - but I've never been able to work it out. Some particular group dynamic, or some subject they've got personally invested in, and my introduction works like a touchpaper. The existence of moments like this is one of the things I'm happiest with about my teaching, although it's ironic that my greatest successes are the times when my students probably wouldn't even notice if I got up and left the room. Still, teaching is about them, not me.

To balance this out, the bus ride home felt like the driver had a cloud of bees around his head, and I got thrown out of my seat (and into one of the guardrails) twice. This morning's bus driver gave me all my change in coppers, too. Either I've offended a bus driver somewhere, or I've offended Grumpio, God of Busdriverkind.