Teaching

I have come to Lithuania to teach at LCC International University. The school was started in the early 1990s by a consortium of United States and Canadian educators with a desire to help Lithuanians learn to succeed in a post Soviet era. Today most of the professors are from North America, though nearly 40% are Lithuanians. The students come mainly from Lithuania with a number coming from other countries, primarily Eastern Europe. Degrees are offered in English, teaching a second language, business, psychology, and theology.

I walk into the Defehr Centras, the main

building on campus. It houses faculty offices, including mine, classrooms,

and the library. After years of teaching

students off campus for Marian College, I finally have an office with my name of the door.

My course load this semester is relatively light. I have two sections of Developmental Psychology and one of Anatomy and Physiology. The first I have never taught and was willing to do so partly because I felt that I am old

enough to have actually lived through most of the developmental stages of

live, been there done that so to speak. I have taught anatomy before and being a pre-med major as an undergrad, feel more comfortable with this class.

I am slowly getting to know my students. There first writing assignment for my developmental psych students was to write about an event or person that influenced who they are today. One woman wrote about the former dictator of Moldavia, her home country, another told of moving out his home as a teenager and into a Hare Krishna commune. I also heard sad tales of death and disappearance, stories of admiration for parents and finding good in all situations

The anatomy class recently studied the skeleton. As an introduction to the topic, I played Them Dry Bones for them. which was quite a hit. I also gave them each the name of a bone and told them to organize themselves into a skeleton. They did a great job.

Preparing for class takes a great deal of time and energy. I also have to learn how to use their e-class network. I am supposed to be able to upload assignments and resources and the students can submit material in an orderly manner. I can't seem to get it to work, though.

But I am excited to be here and look forward to learning from my students as I teach them a little what it means to be a person.