Saturday, December 24, 2016

Teaching

I went into teaching partially cause I had loved and valued so many of my teachers as a child, partially because the vacations are great, partially cause I loved it and partially because I knew I would never get rich teaching, but I would always have a job.

I am still teaching, and I still value many of the teachers I know and work with, I am still not rich but I do still have a job.  I have managed to sort out my life so I almost never have proper holidays, which does seem stupid, but it is worth it.

There are times though when I am just tired of teaching.  It is mostly before I start a class, but you know what is still really lovely about the job after all these years?  This sounds like such a cliche, but I really like the students, very nearly all of them.  Spending time with them and working with them, and showing them how to go about teaching themselves something is still really cool.

I guess I am lucky that way.  I still groan about going off to work, and there are many things around work that are as annoying as hell, as they are for everyone; but once I am in the class with the students? It's normally really great. 

Nice.

6 comments:

J.G. said...

I completely get what you're saying. Even the students who give you the Skeptical Face are such fun if you can open them up to some new ideas and bring them around a bit. So much of teaching isn't about the material at all. That's what keeps me coming back. It's endlessly rewarding (while it wears you out!).

Hope you are having wonderful holidays!

oreneta said...

Hope you have a wonderful holiday as well! I didn't know you were teaching as well. It is interesting work.

Anonymous said...

I enjoyed teaching too - something I never thought of doing at an early stage. But it runs in the family. Seadog

oreneta said...

It does seem to, doesn't it!

elPadawan said...

There's just something unique about the exchange of knowledge that happens during a class, isn't it? ;)

oreneta said...

So true, and you hit it exactly with exchange of knowledge, it cannot be only one way, it is an exchange.