An Email From a Colleague (I Know, I Know, It's Shameless Self-Promotion, But It Did Make Me Ridiculously Happy)

"I have a part-time job over the summer working with the School of Continuing Studies, selecting and training Georgetown undergrads to be TAs and discussion section leaders for summer programs for high school students. During interviews, I needed to get a feel for which undergrads would make good TAs, which is tricky, since theoretically, none of them have any experience. I focused instead on questions about what they learned from former TAs they had- and specifically, I asked each of them to tell me about something a former TA did especially well, why it worked, and what they learned from it. One of my interviewees told me about a Government TA with a background in literature who used to present a relevant poem at the beginning of each discussion section, and ask students to analyze it as a way to introduce discussion on the topic. I was so surprised by the novelty and creativity of the technique (never having heard of anything even remotely similar) that I assumed at the time the student was pulling it out of thin air, making it up on the spot. I'm pleased to see that not only was he being truthful, but that I have the privilege of working with the same TA! The student in question, incidentally, got the job."