Keep calm and carry on

Teaching is like doing 5 hours of improv theater every day. And when you do that, you'll have good days and bad. You'll have days when you really connect with your audience, and those when you don't connect at all. You'll sometimes be brilliant, sometimes disappointing, and sometimes you'll just embarrass yourself.

The other day, in the middle of writing something on the board, I turned abruptly to the class to make some deeply meaningful but slightly tangential point and saw what appeared to be three kids texting and one sleeping - and that was just the front row!

My response was to pause and say, with as much shock and indignation as I could muster, "What the heck is going on here???" Before I even finished the question I realized two things:

1. Due to the unfortunate body positioning of the girl who appeared to be sleeping (her head was down on the table very near the boy to her right, as she rummaged around in her backpack which was on the floor and out of my sight), every row of students behind her would assume that my question was *ahem* suggestive, and 
2. There was absolutely no way out of it. Like quicksand, struggling was just going to make it worse. 

So after some stunned but raucous laughter from the students behind the first row, I decided it was best to just move on with the lesson and not draw any more unnecessary attention to myself. 

When you're on stage doing improv theater for 5 hours a day, every day, you're bound to put your foot in it once in a while. Chances are, you'll take it a lot more seriously than your students, though. So just keep calm and carry on.