What I love about Teaching so far

Sorry I’ve been awol this past week. We had a beautiful new addition in our extended family and I’m a little giddy inside.  I’m the proud auntie of a gorgeous new niece and she is everything precious, soft and beautiful in a little divine package!

I started a new job in September as a part-time teacher at a local college.  I teach two courses in my field (law), and I absolutely love it.  It has been a real adventure for me.  I’ve never taught before and I was very nervous about my own abilities. 

I know for a fact that the beginning weeks were rocky.  I clearly did not know how to fill two hours of lecture time.  Either I had too much, or I had too little.  I also quickly realised that it’s really boring for my students for me to talk non-stop for 2 hours, especially when it’s an 8am class.

It’s been about 12 weeks now, and today for the first time, I felt “in the groove”.  I enjoyed my own lecture on “Pre-trial conferences”, and there was an element of comfort – camaraderie even – in the room.  We’ve had our midterm and assigments, which were milestones we endured together.  We’ve had tearful chats in my office, hilarious Freudian-word slips in class, classmates falling asleep, my son’s school calling repeatedly at the beginning of the year to tell me he’s “queasy” (yeah, whatever, it’s SUCH a lie!).

To sum it up, we’ve shared an experience together, and it’s brought us closer.  I feel a closeness with my students and I want so desperately for them to succeed in their chosen paths.  It’s inspiring to see kids who are working full-time and carrying a full course load. That’s unfathomable to me, and yet these kids have been doing it for a long time.  I feel for the kids who struggle with learning disabilities and who work so hard to achieve their goals.  At the risk of sounding cliché, I feel that I’ve learned just as much (perhaps more) from my students as they have from me.

One of the things that was lacking for me in my legal practice was a sense of human connection.  As a government lawyer, the work was intellectually rigorous and always interesting.  I loved my colleagues and that was a big component of my job satisfaction.  For me, however, the opportunity to connect with someone is huge.  Now, I get that every day and it’s such a motivating factor in getting me to work on cold, wet mornings like today.