So, back to school it finally was.
My neighbors will see less of me during the week."Holy macaroni, it is almost October and you professors are not back the classroom yet!" remarked one neighbor about two weeks ago.
As I drove up to campus earlier this morning, which now seems like yesterday, I thought it would be a cool joke to play on students to pop my head into the classroom only to announce that class was being canceled because of government shutdown.
So, I had the script all set in my mind and walked into the classroom.
But then the dull and boring me took over. I tossed aside that prank. Mr, Boring!
As I wound up the classes and drove home in the dark, I was struck by how much my relating to students has changed. Back in 1987, as a teaching assistant, I was at an age that I could have been an older brother to students.
As my beard grew and the odd grey hair multiplied, I got to a stage of their young uncle.
A few more years of grey, and balding, and I am now as old as, or perhaps even a tad older than, the fathers of the students in the class. A student referred to his grandmother, who is younger than my mother!
A few more years from now, I will be old enough to be in students' grandfathers' cohort. By then, I suppose I will be fully bald, and my beard will not have even a single black hair.
I wonder if I will ever have a wonderful experience of a student's son or daughter in one of my classes in the future. If I do, I wonder what the parent's and child's observations of me might be. It will be awesome to then sit with the family and debrief about their respective experiences in my classes that were twenty-five years apart.
In a way, students are like the waves that wash up at our feet when we plant ourselves on the beach sands. Waves come and recede, and time goes by. Students come and students go, and I have aged.
Old or young, one feeling has not changed--I missed the classroom environment. I missed being able to make students think about things they might not have thought about otherwise. I am glad the long break is over.
I suppose my neighbors are glad and relieved too, because now they get a break from me. Finally! ;)
6 comments:
Shame on you, for not paying the prank Anything for a day off from classes :)
I've always wondered about this. In your profession, the waves analogy is perfect. They come, they go and I wonder what the emotions are when you meet some of them after years.
Surely you are a model neighbour. Not noisy, impeccably polite, yard always done, etc et - they don;t want you to disappear to the classes:)
Wimp I am!
I am always amazed at the trust that some students have in me. I don't mean trust as in confiding secrets,, which some do, but the trust as in a supreme confidence that I will treat them fairly ... and, yes, when those students leave, as Shakespeare wrote, parting is such sweet sorrow ...
Oh yeah, I live in a wonderful neighborhood--could not have asked for better neighbors ...
This is the same prolific anon who recommended you listen to 'Losers' :)
Why did you change the title of the post after publishing?
Ah, the mysterious Anon ;)
I changed the title because I thought this works better. You think otherwise?
I edit the blog entries even after I publish--sometimes they have the glaring spinach (grammar) problems. Or I might want to clarify something that on re-reading I think doesn't work well. Every once in a while, I edit the title too. All because I have no editor :(
this one touched a nerve
Post a Comment