Calling

I get it - or at least, I get it right now and I'll try to hang on to it for awhile - or I'll re-read this post occasionally: I get why I like teaching. I wrote a reference for a student back in January applying to law school. He was a very good student - quick to respond, willing to engage, and a nice cynicism and critical edge. How true is it that teachers respond best to students that remind them of themselves? Or at least, students that remind them of how they wished they could remember themselves. The point being, he just came up to me at work and told me he got two place offers!

I know I have little to nothing to do with his success - my reference certainly didn't make or break his application - but I'm so strangely proud! Not 'strangely' because I think I shouldn't be proud - but 'strangely' because I usually don't see my students after the last seminar. The way that teaching tends to work here I get them for one semester and might see them in the library thereafter. But I rarely notice when they graduate, and don't know them much beyond the faces they present in my classroom/consultation hour. This was the first reference I've written - the first student who has really sought my assistance after leaving my seminar behind. Maybe it's also cause the sun is shining and it was just a nice thing to hear - a bonus on an already alright day.

And I suppose it makes me aware - fleetingly - of how generous students can be - which is really a positive spin on how draining they can also be. It should be a privilege to teach and it is discouraging and depressing how rarely that is seen as the case. Equally, of course, it should be a privilege to learn - but that's not often in evidence either.

In short, I am really proud of my student who got into law school and I definitely plan on saying, when he is a famous lawyer (human rights or environmental preferably!), that I used to teach him back in the day ...