Explo 2014: Teaching at Yale - The First 3 Days

In the beginning of may I got a phone call from a good friend and colleague of mine asking if I was interested in teaching at Explo.... aside from hearing it come out of my friend Justin's mouth once during the year I had no idea what Explo was... but come to find out, it would easily become one of the best teaching experiences of my life - and I'm only in orientation!

I would go into detail about Explo, but it is a summer exploration and curricular opportunity for students to take classes and workshops in areas that they are interested in. My courses are a cappella and show choir! For more info go here: http://www.explo.org/360/yale

Orientation is... well... orientation. A lot of it has to do with the safety of our incoming students (730+ by the way), our staff (about 130 of us) and ourselves.

We have had meetings with curricular advisors by phone, email, and google docs, writing lesson plans and course maps. The best way to explain is that I as well as my colleagues are hired teachers. Instructors better suits the title, but on top of that we are also resident assistants - sort of like a real life college setting which is exactly what these are expecting. a pre-college experience preparing them to be propelled forward in the coming years.

My room is fun - its an old building - I mean REALLY old. No air conditioning. 3 fans. Its like camp for us too!

My co-RA is Kwali (Quay-lee) and he is a joy to work with - its nice to have someone I can read and respond without having to break it all down and vice versa.

Our orientation ended with a day at the beach - only 20 mins away. Can you tell what I will be doing on days off?

I'll attach some photos as I go - I cannot put picture or videos up of the kids, but if you got to the Explo link above, you can see what we are all about!

Thanks for reading!

-R

OH -Yale has this collection of RARE (I mean Gutenberg bible rare) books at the Beinecke Rare Book Library equipped with a air sealed chamber that, in case of fire, with suck all oxygen out in less than 30 seconds.  CRAZY!