A botched experiment, a rejected paper: such things are soon labelled as failures in academia. As for talking about them – not done! But that is just what WUR scientist do in this column. Because failure has its uses. This time, we hear from Edwin Alblas, assistant professor in the Law Group.
‘A year ago I was the teacher responsible for a course for the first time. It didn’t go badly but it was a hectic time. The further we got into the course, the more I was chasing my tail. The next lecture was going to be on Monday and I was having a final look through the slides on the Sunday afternoon. I thought I’d already prepared them all but it turned out I’d only made three of the 50 slides. I was working on it till three in the morning.
The next morning, on Blue Monday, I missed the bus to the campus. Along with 300 students, I squeezed onto the next one and arrived just in time to start my lecture. It went okay for the first few slides but then I suddenly started to feel very hot and nauseous. I could feel 90 pairs of eyes on me. I needed to get away. I pretended to take a phone call and left the room. I recovered in the toilets.
Amazingly, I finished that lecture, but I got stage fright again during all the subsequent lectures. After the first few slides, I’d break out in a sweat and I was scared I’d have another panic attack. I thought I could never lecture again, and that I’d have to give up my job – whereas I really like teaching. A few nerves can be helpful, but this was dysfunctional.
I sought the help of a mentor for the University Teaching Qualification and of a coach. I made sure I incorporated short breathers for myself into my lectures, by shifting the focus to the students through a question or a video clip, for instance. I stopped making such a big thing of it: if I had an off moment and needed to take a five-minute break, I was open about it with my students. After three lectures, I got out of survival mode and I could enjoy teaching again. So what felt like failure back then, I can now see as an off day.’
