The future

This semester has been a series of revelations and awesome learning experiences in all of my classes. One of the coolest things I've noticed since I started taking education classes is that once I had a decent grounding in educational theory and practice, I couldn't help but notice the strategies of the teachers around me and how their students (including myself) reacted to those strategies. The cool thing about studying education is that it gets super meta--I'm a teacher and a student at once, and I can look through either or both lenses. One of my hopes for the future is that I don't lose that perspective. I was talking to my mother, who is also a teacher at a technical college in my hometown--at the moment, she's working on her Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration, which would make her rather overqualified for the job she has right now. I asked her why she keeps taking classes--she's been steadily working through her Masters and Ph.D, once class at a time, since I can remember--and she said something potent: "if I stop taking classes I stop remembering what it's like to be one of my students." Mostly, I always want to be learning from my students. Many of my favorite teachers have mentioned that they learn from their students, always going into a class period hoping to meet a new idea. I want to do that.