I love teaching. I know I've said it before, but I'm done on Tuesday, so I thought I'd better express my joy properly before I have to stop (and have to start catching up on my own homework).
And I know teaching's not perfect. I have good days and bad days. There are days when class finishes and the best thing I can say is that I guess we'll have to learn from that one. (And wanting the best for my students, I feel like I've let them down.)
There are other teaching days, when it truly is great fun. I feel like I'm doing one of the things I love best - and am using well the gifts that I have been given.
I thought I'd share with you some of my favourite teaching moments from this January
- on the second day of class, I managed to show my students how postmodernity doesn't fit a nice definition. I refused to give a definition and kind of made it be all about how they felt about it. They were definitely annoyed at me, but the ambiguity of the definition and even postmodernity's refusal to be defined were made very clear to them.
- all the class discussions that worked (as opposed to the one's that kind of flounder - or you feel like you're pulling teeth to get people to talk). The best example of that was last Friday: i had asked a question, received a mediocre response from the class, and had started to move on, when a student interrupted to say that she didn't agree with what had been said and wanted to spend time discussing it.
- all the times in class when students shared something that was personal, and they were willing to be vulnerable with each other - and more so, encourage each other.
- somehow it came up that a student had a friend in a class like ours where they didn't get any homework. Knowing everyone's dislike of homework, I made some comment about how that might have been nice - and he indicated that he would have rather been in this class. His friend didn't learn anything, and he's learned tons. (and in that moment, i felt like i had been faithful in doing a good job of teaching).
after all that, how could i not be overjoyed?
2 comments:
Sounds like your gift for teaching is being affirmed in testing.
I got a better glimpse of the challenge of post modernism from just that little description. I'm begining to understand why I don't get it (post modernism)... because "it" isn't an it it's a them.
Brava!
Sounds like your gifts have been affirmed as you exercised them well.
Your paragraph about post modernism helped me understand why I don't really get "it". "It" isn't an it, "it's" a them; besides being loosey-goosey.
Post a Comment