I really don't care if you like me or not

Lie. Of course I care. And this may be one of my biggest weaknesses when it comes to teaching effectively. I'm helping teach a course for new physics lab instructors, and the group of 7 male PhD students and postdocs look at me while I talk. Some of them don't, perhaps hoping I don't ask them a question.

But maybe they are just bored. Crap, look at that guy, who has been the most active participant so far, his eyes are rolling back into his head. I'm boring him! I'm boring them all! Quick, smile more, song and dance, why won't they smile and nod at me? Why won't you like me?!?

Wait time, out the window.

Skip some parts of my slides, because they probably think what I'm saying is too touchy feely. I don't give edicts, or rules, I'm just talking about building rapport with your students. Which, apparently, I suck at. Or do I? I have no idea.

I do know that it shouldn't be the point of my teaching, whether they like me or not. Because it leads to too many "right?" (smile, nod and hope they do too) moments. So what my last minute activities didn't fly, I've made notes to make them better next time. At least I stopped talking for a while and they got to do something.

The other thing that I have encountered again is the confusion over how to pitch this stuff. I'm the only woman in the room, I'm not a working scientist, and I don't believe in "I know better than you" presentations. And yet, people want to learn from masters, those who they feel are better at them at things. How do I strike a balance between getting them to buy into my expertise on these topics without having to pull an alpha roll on the audience with a flurry of my PhD letters and references and establishing dominance? How do you preach non-dominance without dominating a class full of male physicists to get their attention. Or anyone for that matter? Female physics professors, too. How do I challenge the cult of genius in a presentation when I worry that I have to convince the audience I'm a genius to listen to my presentation.

Foucault used to dream about writing an article anonymously so that people would read his ideas fresh, with no preconceptions about who was writing. And yet, to get people to publish it, to spend time reading it, he knew he would have to sign it. I may not be no Einstein, but maybe I'm a little bit Foucault.