Altering one's aspect to the sun

Sometime in August during this past summer, I was on the phone with my dad, talking excitedly about the upcoming semester. In an unprecedented twist of events, I wouldn't be taking any classes; instead, I'd be teaching a college class -- my own class, full of first-semester freshmen, following a syllabus that I created, getting graded according to my own standards and rubrics. I'd been reading, studying, preparing for years for this chance: to finally get to be didactically bossy in front of a room full of teenagers.

My dad by nature is unwaveringly loving and supportive, but he also maintains a hardwired inclination to spot or predict potential problems. As it happens, he has a number of secondary-school teacher friends who have gotten thoroughly jaded against the whole "teaching is totally like Dead Poets Society!" narrative. 

So his response to my enthusiasm was, "Just as a hypothetical... What makes you confident that you'll enjoy teaching? What happens if you find that you don't like it? Are you prepared for that possibility?"

"...Not really."

Despite having no real experience to back up my assumption, I couldn't imagine a world in which I wouldn't find teaching fun. Despite my occasional "attempting to be a human hermit crab" proclivities, I get a rush out of public speaking and love giving advice. I care about people and believe in everyone's capacity for self-improvement. Moderating and guiding on-the-fly in-class discussions sounded like a stimulating challenge. I love puzzles and problem solving, and at its core, helping a student reform and revise a paper is an exercise in discovering problems and brainstorming solutions. (Heck, convincing a student that her paper needs improvement is a puzzle in itself.) And besides, college teaching, particularly at a relatively prestigious institution like mine, affords you substantially more freedom than a high-school setting, and is far less likely to land you with a class full of uninterested, behaviorally challenged students.

So, admittedly, I went into the semester with a halfway-naive, O-Captain-My-Captain-esque optimism. But now that the term is winding down, I find that my "Yay! Teaching!" bubble is still intact. I'm not harboring any illusions that my class was perfect or that I'm unusually talented at my job, but my students are, by and large, a bright, earnest, and hardworking bunch; I do have fun helping them become better writers; and even the difficult moments are usefully instructive. All things considered, I take this to be evidence that I know myself reasonably well, or at least well enough to know that it wasn't likely that I'd walk into a classroom and morph into Miss Trunchbull. 

The surprises I did encounter were more along the lines of the run-of-the-mill unexpectednesses that you simply have no reason to foresee. For example, (for me, and contrary to my assumption) teaching isn't much like public speaking. I suppose "the ability to avoid vomiting in front of a room full of strangers" applies, but teaching requires you to be way more on your toes and willing to adapt to an interactive environment that changes second to second. In a discussion-and-activity-based, non-lecture class like mine, trying to develop detailed agendas or things to say often actually worked against me. I eventually found that my best lesson plans were the broadest and least pre-scripted, since they left the most room for addressing in-the-moment concerns.

I also, of course, learned plenty of new things about myself. If you have any sort of inclination to introspection, literally any new job can be a gateway to self-enlightenment. I learned that I'm totally comfortable being one of those teachers who waits patiently in silence for students to answer a question while they squirm under the weight of awkwardness. I learned that it's remarkably easy to continue to root for your students' success even if they're lazy or struggling. I learned that promising donuts in exchange for above-average class participation makes for a hilariously effective motivation tool.

It's only been one semester, so there's no telling how my optimism will hold up against a true test of time. But for now, I reiterate: Yay! Teaching!