Newness for a New Year

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Realizations of a College Instructor

Did you ever have one of those days as a college student when you didn't feel well (physically or emotionally) but you opted to head to class and merely exist in the back of the class? You could sit through 50 minutes even though you weren't really there. Well, I never thought that my instructors might also have those days, only they couldn't just sit in the back of the class. I somehow forgot or never really conceived of my professors and instructors as having real lives or emotions for that matter. Nothing outside the limits of my class that is. I thought they were always prepared and ready to teach.

Today I haven't been feeling so great. I curled up on my office floor and slept today so I could feel good enough to go teach a class. It was all I could do to concentrate on the words coming out of mouth in some sort of coherent manner.

I guess what this means is that I forget that people are really all just people: we get sick, we are unhappy, we are bored, and we are distracted. I guess the role of teachers then is make their students never know just how normal they are.

2 comments:

Amber said...

Awww.... I'm sorry you didn't feel well. I never really thought of it either. I'm not good at hiding my bad days from my "students". What do you do if you are so sick you can't get out of bed? Call a sub or just cancel class? I hope you feel better soon!

jw said...

Sorry to hear about your crummy day. I've always been surprised at how little students sometimes notice. I might be feeling poorly or teach a class I think it lousy, and sometimes the students hardly notice. I think they recognize it's not me in top-form, but they really don't know me well enough to recognize the difference between regular and crappy.

On the other hand, they always notice when I'm feeling great.