Teacher to Student

Today marked the end of my six-week summer class. It was my first experience with community college and was definitely different from any class I had ever been in. The class was in the course listing as "History of World Religions", but it was really much more of a philosophy class. I was a little disappointed at first, but I learned to embrace that it was something new and different.

I think I have been pretty up front about what a huge history dork I am, but I still don't know if you all get it. I need to take a picture of my bookshelves at home to convey the dorkiness. I'm talking shelves and shelves and shelves of history books. In college I took predominately history classes. My senior spring I think all 4 of my classes were history. Needless to say, philosophy classes were nowhere on my radar. I think the closest I got was intro to Psychology. I enrolled in this history of religion class expecting to learn the tactics Asoka used to spread Buddhism throughout southeast Asia and the details behind the Sunni/Shi'ite divide.

Instead I got a philosophy class full of high schoolers and students not much older than those I was teaching 3 months ago. There were retired professionals in their sixties, and a gentleman who was going back to college after a thirty year hiatus. There was a former Marine using his GI Bill and a 21 year old recovering drug addict. Mostly though it was students much like most of the seniors I sent off last year. Students with hopes to attend four-year universities in the future, but currently working hard to earn their credits in community college. They weren't the students I was used to sitting in class with, but they added a perspective to the class that I think I needed as a high school teacher.

I needed to be a student again and be that one person that gets it while nobody else does. I needed to be the person who has a large chunk of the lecture fly right over their head 'cos they've been absent for days. I needed to see how admirable (and not annoying) it is for a student to step up and ask what a vocabulary word you just used means. I needed to remember what it's like to sit in class every once in a while and be bored and count down the minutes until I'm free again. While I was often uncomfortable at how much my classmates shared it definitely opened my eyes up even further to all the different paths kids can take out of high school.

I will really miss my goofy hodgepodge religion class. We were a motley crew and had some very interesting conversations over the course of six weeks. I took the class for the factual content and did not expect to gain much else from it. Regardless of what happens this summer with the boy, I am truly glad I was out here this summer and I am so glad I took this class. I think every teacher needs to go back and be a student every once in a while, not surrounded by other teachers or grad students, but by real students.

Have you ever been pleasantly surprised by a school or work experience? Or had an experience that completely changed your perspective about an issue?