At first it seemed to me that the difference between being a student and being a teacher was one short summer. May 2005 I was a student, Sept 2005 I was a teacher. No big deal - a few months. But since that time I've realized that that transition was actually a huge chasm, not a mere summer.
*As a student I would clear my throat, and my throat would be clear. As a teacher I feel congested, clear my throat, and instantly, guilty heads from all over the classroom whip around to see if they are the one being corrected.
*As a student I would stay up reallllly late the night before a paper and crank it out in a matter of hours. As a teacher I read papers and think "good grief! how dreadful! It looks like they stayed up realllllly late the night before this paper and cranked it out in a matter of hours!"
*As a student, missing a day meant getting make-up work. As a teacher, missing a day means scrambling about (in the midst of illness) to e-mail in modified lesson plans full of things that students can do with minimal direction, and then picking up the pieces after I return. Way easier just to go to school.
*As a student I could kind of fudge a bit if I was too overloaded, or too whatever, to get real work done. As a teacher, oh wait, as a teacher I still do that. I'm all about self-preservation:)
*As a student my motivation was A's on my report card. As a teacher my motivation is this terror that my kids will graduate without having received a quality education because of some huge hole I forgot about (like, you know, Shakespeare or something - although I know I've got that one covered!). [Okay, so that's not really my motivation. My real motivation is much more positive. This is just the dark side of my motivation...]
*As a student, my happiness came from a good grade earned through hard work. As a teacher, my happiness comes when my students have those "aha!" moments of learning. It is an unbelievable experience.
*As a student, when I screamed my teacher would tell me to be quiet. As a teacher, when I scream my headmaster tells me to be quiet... and that classroom order depends largely on the teacher, and good order is necessary for real learning, and we want our kids to have the best learning environment possible, etc. etc. (Fortunately I only get this talk about twice a year... and I know I need it... and he's always really nice about it. Sigh.)
*As a student I was surrounded with people who were also born around 1979. As a teacher I'm surrounded with people who were born in the 1990s! Good grief! And as a result I get comments like this.
So ya, the two are pretty distinct. But the most important thing in all of this is that I still get the same vacations as I did when I was a student:) I love teaching!
6 comments:
What? Nobody has commented yet? I thought it was an interesting post with some good points! :) I Love you!
Great post! I wholeheartedly agree with the extra work involved with missing a day. That probably has had an influence on the fact that I have only taken one sick day in the 443 days or so that I've taught. And that was when I was vomiting. (I've decided that's where I draw the line and call in sick; you can't have any unpleasant accidents at the front of the classroom!) :-)
As far as bullet point two, I suspect that your teachers were somewhat less horrified at the results of your papers, even if completed late at night, than your reaction is to your students' papers.
My spin on point four is this: as a student you have deadlines to meet and thus might have to fudge things. As a teacher you can set your own deadlines for getting things corrected and be lazy, which is a delicious power (even if I try not to abuse it)!
And the students being born in the 1990s is weird. You actually have to explain about people like Ronald Reagan, so they're not like "Ronald who?" Not that I ever have enough time to cover the Reagan period, so it's all theoretical...
Lots of smiles!
Hee hee - Chad it's so fun that you're a teacher too! I love that you said how you never get to the Reagan era... I totally relate! We spent so long on the Iliad last year, and did the Aeneid in about 2 weeks:)
Drewey FERN! You're an ENGLISH teacher? It's definitely supposed to be "so MUCH fun" not "so fun" in your comment to Chad.
I'm appalled! ;) Especially since it's you who pointed this out to me and I've never been the same since! hehe
I love you! :)
Oh my word! I can't believe me! And I just corrected one of my students on that this past week! I'll just blame end-of-the-week and weekend-laxity. :)
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