Teaching something REALLY new

Most days, I walk into my classroom with ease. My clothes are professional, my hair is done, my slides are ready, and I stand at the front like a conductor ready to direct an orchestra – excited and eager to hear what emerges.

One day a week, though, I walk into a different classroom. This time, my hair is up and my water bottle rattles with ice. My clothes are vividly neon. Instead of standing at a podium, I put on some loud reggaeton music and slide to the floor to stretch.

Some days I teach Theology. Other days I teach Zumba.

As a professor officially in my “mid-career” phase, I sometimes think nostalgically on my first few years of teaching. I had tons of enthusiasm and energy, and I would try all kinds of things to keep my classes moving and engaging. Most of them worked okay, but only a few became tried-and-true staples of my teaching style. I appreciate that I can spend less time inventing new projects and activities and instead tap into my “greatest hits” for more dependable results, and yet sometimes I miss the frisson of coming in and trying something new. So I found a new way to reconnect with that energy.

Thanks to a generous Wabash grant, I’ve now been a licensed Zumba instructor for over a year. I teach my classes on my campus, so my students are my students, and they’ve slowly grown used to seeing me both in blazers and crop tops, depending on the context. I’ve learned more than I could have imagined about the body image, stress, and intensity of my students’ lives – and I’ve also learned a few key things about myself as a teacher.

First off, it’s okay to teach from a place of joy rather than raw expertise. I am not that impressive as a dancer. I’m plus-sized and pushing 40 with a persistent foot injury, so even with my dance background and enthusiasm, plenty of my youthful undergrads can hit choreography more cleanly and look cuter while doing it. Turns out that that isn’t the point, and honestly, it doesn’t matter once we get going. I’ve learned, or re-learned, that I just love teaching! I thrill to see learners follow my lead and instructions, knowing they’ll have a unique and new experience. Seeing students overtake me feels like a victory, not a failure. Teaching Zumba has been a powerful reminder that teaching is mostly about going first and inviting others along – perfect mastery isn’t necessary, but joy is, and I get that in spades from being with a group of curious people. I feel like I’ve seen my vocation distilled down to the best bits, and reconnecting with that makes me more confident in the traditional classroom.

Secondly, I’ve been reminded of how bodily all teaching is. I literally teach a course entitled Bodies in Christian Theology, so this isn’t so much a surprise as a reprise, but I love using my full body-self in teaching – pacing, gesturing, talking (perhaps excessively), writing, and pointing. If my body is engaged in teaching, shouldn’t my students’ bodies be engaged in learning? Teaching Zumba – and seeing that a bit of silliness and controlled chaos actually enhances the classroom more than it detracts – has freed me up to encourage more bodiliness in academic learning. Making students get up to move to new groups, write and draw and doodle, talk and laugh, giving them objects to play with, asking them to take three deep breaths, is good teaching! They’re more than just brains in the classroom. More body-time is stimulating and interesting.

So for other mid-career faculty, or anyone else hoping to inject new life into their classroom, consider teaching something entirely new. It might shake things up in a joyful new way.