Off to a good start, I would say. Haven't touched this since I set it up, though slow and unreliable internet connections are a little to blame. Anyway, I suppose once you get desperate enough again, once you fall far enough behind where you are supposed to be with work, there will always be time to blog. To whom, I can't say, but anyway...

Contrary to what the titile says, I really haven't had any new ideas in a while. Teaching is starting to be a drag - always rushing to get lectures done, and then wondering if you are boring the students. Oh well. It should get better soon for me, if not for them - I am finished with the 'Tropical Forest Ecology' - so I should now go on to the 'Tropical Forest Management' half, which I really don't know enough about to diverge too far from Mike's outline.

One of those things - the more you know, the harder it is to teach. If only I were a school teacher working from a beginning syllabus I knew nothing about. That would be easy - teach what's in the book...who cares if there is any real depth to your knowledge. On the other hand university students are probably more likely to be forgiving of gaps in your knowledge than younger children. You aren't out to earn the respect of undergrads in the same way - they accept that you must know something well, and once you have that to stand on you are ok. A school teacher hasn't staked out a field in the same way, and so you assume that if they don't know what they are teaching that maybe they don't really possess any real knowledge.