the amateur

Last year I took a course on teaching in higher education. While it wasn't by choice, and I didn't enjoy a lot of it...there were a few lessons I took away from it that have really stuck with me.

So now, as I'm grading papers for my own college course those lessons keep coming back to me. And I wonder how well I'm doing. I've never struggled with speaking in front of crowds, or having to wing it when I don't know what to say. I actually thrive in those situations, so while I am loving teaching, and feel like I have a good rhythm and rapport with my students, sometimes I worry that I'm not teaching them as much as I want to be.

I worry that they'll take future film courses and not feel prepared. I worry that if I give them a bad grade they'll give me a bad evaluation at the end of the semester. I worry that I'm too easy on them, and I worry that I'm too hard on them.

In short (or rather long, at this point) I worry.

Teaching feels a lot like what parenting must be like. You do your best, you do what seems right at the time, and hope it works out, even though you won't know for a while.