Pumped!

I am pumped! I just came back from opening still another semester of teaching. In this case, it is Business Organizational Behavior, a core course for our Management majors. The first semester I taught my first OB courses was Fall 1973. Yes, 1973. That was over 35 years ago - more years than many of you, my fellow teachers, have lived. Yet, I am pumped. I just plain love designing and running my classes. I tweak what worked from last time and install risky new practices to learn what might work better this time. I had 58 fresh faces looking at me this morning, some hopeful, some expressionless, some worried. My designs are entrepreneurial. Different that what most are used to in an undergraduate college course. For them to succeed, they need embrace the differences and let it fuel their learning.

I open the class with the "Dawn of Man" scene from Kubrick's' film of Arthur C.Clarke's sci fi novel, 2001: a Space Oddessey. The point is to show that before our species developed what I call a Mind for Managing, they just let life happen to them (and death happen to them, as in being eaten by a saber-toothed leopard). When they dare to encounter and learn about the obelisk that appeared in their space over night, it ignited imaginations which led to the invention of tools and weapons - ways to make life last a bit longer and go a bit better each day. The "beat goes on eons later - still making products and rendering services to make life last longer and go better each day. Nice cause.

Yes, the first day back to classes reminds this old veteran how fortunate I am, all of us are, to have this rare opportunity to start fresh and become better at our craft.

If you are out there, will you offer comment on your first day back to the classroom?