why summer is so hard for me
This piece from the American Scholar really hit home for me today, more than two months after the last day of class. I miss my students. I miss their energy, their enthusiasm, their very presence. "Teaching," Deresiewicz writes, "finally, is about relationships. It is mentorship not instruction.... The feelings we have for the teachers or students who have meant the most to us, like those we have for long-lost friends, never go away."
It's not as though I'm counting the days until August 20. I'm not intellectually ready to begin teaching yet. I still need this down time. But it so often blows my mind how much of a funk I can get into when I'm not teaching--and how much teaching makes me feel so. much. better. It never fails. Even if I'm dreading going to class, I always feel better when I leave that day.
I have the best job in the world.
Labels: teaching
posted by aerobil @ 1:59 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Would that all teachers felt the same way you do!
I've seen far too many who have other agendas, running the gamut from stepping into adminstrative shoes where the bigger bucks are and the prestige, or just liking long vacations abroad while making local TV spots so they can write off the expenses of the trip, or those needing to feel good about themselves at the expense of people other than their own peer group, to say nothing of the power-mongers who whisper in order to control or whose long pregnant pauses are an excuse to scream at their students for interrupting them! Then there are those other poor souls who use academe as a way to avoid contact with the "real" world and a place to hide their addictions in where they are less likely to be detected than on a regular 8-hour job interacting with the public, all the while churning out arcane prose having little bearing on the lives of ordinary mortals.
You are blessed. You love your job, and it shows. You respect yourself and you respect your students. You are a good human being. And it really is a joy to see those young people grow as they go forth on their own adventures, isn't it?
The world needs more people like you: conscientious and caring.
shoe
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