Wearing the Teacher Hat...

I have a class to teach today on Growing and Using Common Herbs in South Texas, at the Copeland Activity Center. My contact said there will likely be around 45 people, all of retirement age. I have no idea what their average garden knowledge will be, but I figure I'll have enough material to get the brand new ones going and enough to foster a little curiosity in the veterans.

The hardest part in preparing the lesson plan was figuring out when to stop...it's only an hour and a half, and I'm supposed to leave time for questions! I love gardening AND herbs--there's just soooooo much cool stuff to share. I'll edit this post when I'm finished today with a little post-mortem on how it went. In the meantime, go make a cup of herb tea...maybe rosemary for a mental lift, lemon balm if you need to sooth your tummy.




Edited the next day to add:

I did teach the class, and had a great time. There was not as big a group as I'd expected, only 30 or so, which is good because there's more interaction with a smaller group. One thing I discovered as I taught the lesson--no, two things. First, when you are asked to teach a class, be sure to specify the level of material you are going to present, so you can draw a more homogeneous knowledge base as a target--and write the lesson accordingly. Second, put much less in the lesson plan! I had way too much to cover to be able to do an adequate job of any of it, and in trying to cover so much, it felt like I was just all over the place.

They seemed happy with the class, because I'd made sure to direct them to the San Antonio Herb Society, where the ones who are seriously interested can delve more deeply into their particular interests. But for future reference, I will know to be a lot more discerning when I write a lesson plan!