UCI recommends that one or twice a year every instructor should record him- or herself teaching and sit down with a pedagogical counselor and go over the results. It's a harrowing experience, but useful in the extreme because it helps temper some habits that've become so fixed they don't register as extreme anymore. It's an exercise in becoming painfully self-aware of how one behaves in a classroom, and I'd recommend it to anyone who teaches ... and Rick Perry. Because there was this one time I was all hopped up on the caffeine before my session and I came into class and it went something like this:
You start with a bang, hitting your buzz words, but you slowly peter out, start checking your notes, and begin rambling before rousing yourself momentarily as you prepare to crash again. It's a poor performance, hilariously so, but I can sympathize. It must be tiring trying to remember all that tripe.
Depending on what the other 15 minutes were like, this may not be as bad as it looks. Really, he just seems relaxed, which is unusual for a politician with cameras rolling. Could be artifically induced, or sleep-deprived.
Though in all honesty, I kept thinking of Warren Beatty in Bulworth.
Posted by: Ahistoricality | Monday, 31 October 2011 at 12:51 PM