Teaching college classes on zoom during the pandemic was unpleasant for me. I would feel drained by zoom and eventually burnt out.

All my classes were discussion classes, Computers, Robots and Film, Cyberspace Issues and Ethics, and even learning python was a discussion class.

But zoom and the pandemic highlighted all the different places education happens: online zoom, online software cohort-based classes, online asynchronous classes, youtube lectures, discussion groups, in-person classes and meetings, and the home.

What does it mean to teach a class?

I recently read bell hooks’ Teaching To Transgress, which helped me think through what it means to teach within a university.

I taught my film class, and I thought, why film instead of short stories? When I taught on zoom, I thought, why take a college class and not join an online discussion or listen to @FilmCritHULK?

The internet and pandemic have expanded the places where education happens. For example, Game Studies Study Buddies Podcast by @rangedtouch is a conversation between two academics. There is an associated discord, and I would think about the difference between this and a class.

Situations and Experiences

Today I am exploring a constellation of feelings. I can reduce this to a situation – why teach a class at a university instead of having a podcast?

I find myself in a situation where sometimes I have the opportunity to teach at a university. I do not have a podcast.

I enjoy teaching and learning – discussion and transformation. I have the experience of being a filmmaker and a computer scientist and thinking and reading deeply on topics I teach.

Life offers opportunities for us to engage with the world. Some opportunities feel more demanding and out of reach, and some options feel close to being realized. It feels more accessible TO ME to teach a class at a university than offering a Teachable online Teachable course.

What I feel Today

Why teach a class? Why take a class? Why listen to a youtube tutorial? Because we all have a constellation of options available to us to satisfy our desires and we pick those that feel the most accessible and that most fully satisfy our desires.

If you are interested in more work like this, please check out my newsletter, The Rewrite: https://therewrite.substack.com/

And here is a piece I wrote on learning and containers: https://medium.com/@hackerm0m/spaces-and-containers-9227f2d9b840