For the last several decades, I have managed to avoid watching video of myself.  I would avoid pictures too, but at least they only capture a moment and I can edit those if I want.  No, a video is something else however.  It can capture your voice, strange gestures and noises, and you see yourself in all your flawed glory.  Yes, there’s a reason I’ve avoided this.  Until now.

The last few weeks, we were “asked” to make a video of ourselves while teaching so that we could see what kinds of engagement and questioning strategies we were using – if any.  I was dreading this and waited until the last possible minute,  finally taking the plunge at the last class of the day because well – I had no other choice.  Ok, not so hard, but now I was going to have to watch it.

First thought – I REALLY have gained a ton of weight.  I knew it, but there are ways to disguise some of these things in pictures.  I really have to do something about that.  The second thing I noticed is that I have a nice speaking voice.  I had been told that but hadn’t actually heard myself for awhile.  Thirdly,  I can still sing pretty well.  I was afraid I had begun singing with the old lady vibrato, but apparently not.  It was a great relief.  And lastly, I was boring.  Seriously boring.  There was no energy, no spark, no creativity.  Just basically going through the motions.  I couldn’t even get to counting how many times I asked questions and how many different ways I asked them.  If I had had me as a teacher, I would hate it.

Ok, maybe it wasn’t my best day, after all, I regularly do pretty well on my observations anymore, but maybe that’s just because I know how to turn it on when I have to.  And it wasn’t the most exciting of lessons.  After all, it’s right before the holidays and I’m doing whatever I can to keep the class together and keep my sanity as well.  But the truth is, not only was I bored watching it, I was bored TEACHING it.  If I saw this person and had to decide whether or not they should be teaching…. well, it’s a good thing I didn’t.

That’s the thing about videos – it’s hard to hide things.  It’s hard to lie.  It catches whatever is happening in real time.  Now that I’ve seen it, it’s time to decide what I need to change.  Well, obviously, I need to lose some weight.  Duh.  But that has nothing to do with teaching – or does it?  Would I have more energy if I felt better?  Probably.  Might be something to consider.  Apparently I haven’t lost my bread and butter – my voice.  Again, grateful for that.  Now for the actual teaching.  It was pretty eye opening to see what I look like in action.  More like scary actually.  And truthful.  After 28 years, perhaps the time has come.  Kids deserve better and right now now I’m not giving them what they deserve.  Things to think about.

Kind of wishing that our assignment had been more open ended, to just observe ourselves and interpret rather than look at something so specific.  Maybe we missed the big picture.  Maybe I should take more videos.