Nine years after leaving my job as a Spanish teacher I once again find myself in the front of a classroom giving assignments and directing the learning of people. This time I am teaching a one-unit course on vocation in the seminary. Quite a bit different from teaching middle school students the basics of Spanish.

And yet, tonight as I finished reading the first round of papers that I have assigned, I was struck once again with the thrill that I received from teaching all those years ago. I was and continue to be amazed at how people take what I offer and make such incredibly rich and meaningful things out of them.

When I was teaching Spanish, I always looked forward to the creative writing pieces I assigned because these allowed the students to show me how they had taken in the information I had shared with them and really made it their own. That feeling came back to me full-force as I was reading the papers from the seminary students today.

I'm left with the feeling of, "Really? They were able to get there from what I gave them?" It's exciting. I plant the ideas and the students run with them. And I'm always surprised (usually in good ways) with what that looks like.

I'm glad to be back in the classroom.

 

Nine years after leaving my job as a Spanish teacher I once again find myself in the front of a classroom giving assignments and directing the learning of people. This time I am teaching a one-unit course on vocation in the seminary. Quite a bit different from teaching middle school students the basics of Spanish.

And yet, tonight as I finished reading the first round of papers that I have assigned, I was struck once again with the thrill that I received from teaching all those years ago. I was and continue to be amazed at how people take what I offer and make such incredibly rich and meaningful things out of them.

When I was teaching Spanish, I always looked forward to the creative writing pieces I assigned because these allowed the students to show me how they had taken in the information I had shared with them and really made it their own. That feeling came back to me full-force as I was reading the papers from the seminary students today.

I'm left with the feeling of, "Really? They were able to get there from what I gave them?" It's exciting. I plant the ideas and the students run with them. And I'm always surprised (usually in good ways) with what that looks like.

I'm glad to be back in the classroom.