This teacher has become the student and the transition has been intriguing. My year-long journey of doing things I've never done before has put me into the role of the student in some new situations, and the lessons are many and varied. For those of you new to this column, the purpose of the journey is to rejuvenate, to experience life in a fresh way at an age when things often go stale. I started in January and have tackled six new things so far this year. (For an update, see http://agedtoperfectiondeborahhansen.blogspot.com/2011/01/have-you-hookahed.html for the first installment.) Who knows where the next six months will find me?
One of my new teachers chuckled when I admitted that I hadn't done the homework that he asked me to do. I hemmed, I hawed, I excused my own transgressions. I was pitiful, in other words. And then he seemed to delight in reminding me that my students must have felt the same way when I asked for THEIR homework and they started reciting the litany of reasons why they didn't have it done. You know what they say about payback.
It has also been an eye-opener to be reminded from this new viewpoint that education is repetition. I hear the instruction, I see the demonstration, and I'm simply not getting it. Frustration mounts. And then, a mere change in terminology allows the same concept to finally sink in, making sense where yesterday there was no sense at all. Or it took me being ready to hear it....finally.
These are all things I know and have utilized from the instructor's side of the desk for decades. But by moving to the other side of the desk, the student side, my perspective has been knocked off kilter.
And that is a very good thing, at any age.
Education from every angle in every subject is truly the highest pursuit.
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