Final grades were due today at 9:00am. I turned in my last grade at 12:00am. I wanted to give my students as much possible time to turn in their work as I could.
This semester has been frustrating, rewarding, confusing, and other ing words (it can be described by most, if not all, of the modifiers you can think of, such has been this semester). Let me list some lessons learned (I hope you, dear reader, are a fan of alliteration):
1) Acting as though one is confident both inspires confidence in others and actually makes one become more confident (something I suppose I already knew, but never had to put into practice as often before).
2) Anxiety will not kill a person, it will, in every cliche way, actually make one better (better as in a better person, teacher, discussion leader, adivsor, etc etc).
3) Students do not see their teachers as people.
4) The fact that students don't see their teachers as people is both helpful and not; it helps with the whole acting as though one is confident, but it can lead to students' disillusionment if they see through the teacherness to a human being.
5) Teaching is the best job for me.
Although I am certainly ambivalent about this semester, it did show me how much I love teaching. I mean, I suppose I already knew that, but now it's cemented in my brain. That sounds dangerous. Hm.
Perhaps less frightening (and less cliche, maybe?) imagery is in order. This semester has made real to me in a lucid and compelling way that teaching is my calling; it's like when I'm riding my bike to work and it is 90 degrees in December, and I have been riding standing up because the road is uphill, then there's a turn and I'm coasting fast down the sidewalk, everything green and thrumming around me, the breeze in my face making it seem ten degrees cooler.
