Today I am throwing away notes from the class I used to teach. As I figured out how I wanted to teach ... say Mag compass stuff ... how it works, how and why it errs, instrument glitches ... true north, magnetic north, isogonic lines, deviations ... ANDS and UNOS ... ground track ... On and on, it's all interrelated but not sexy like GPS, or better still, FMS ... As I figured out how I wanted to teach "stuff" my notes evolved. I also kept data on how they tested with different approaches and sometimes feedback notes. People learn different ways. I like to have something in my hand when I'm learning about it. My mind wanders when sitting in a lecture ... I like to fiddle. Now I'm going off topic ... Throwing away notes is difficult. I can see how my thinking became more refined on some things ... I can see where I came from in those file folders and ... they do need to be compressed. At the same time, the notes are lecture notes and even if I did teach a group of students again, I would need to reformat. Why save any of it I wonder. And ... I save it because it is so beautifully constructed. I don't miss teaching the class, but ... .

Do I need this? I don't think so. I am shuffling through it like The Jerk ... I don't need any of it, except maybe this ... Oh, and this.

It's kinda ruining my Saturday. Two said, "Mom, just bag it up and throw it away."

How do people do this? It's trash. How do I throw it away?

(notes from 2011 ... I did teach the class again, several agains punctuated semester long breaks from teaching, but I taught regularly until 2015 which was my last semester with Auburn Flight Ed. And the "stuff" ... I kept on polishing it until I was finished with it and then I threw the tangible parts of it away. now it's 2019 and I may have another opportunity to shift through some "stuff" because now that life has slowed down a bit I see that I "need" less stuff. Keeping that old prop for now though!)