Imagine what it was like when you were in school. Was there one teacher that made a difference in your life? When you watch movies there are one-liners that stand out and you remember them forever. Was there a positive one-liner that one of your teachers said that changed your life? There are many rewarding moments being a teacher, the moments of a student’s discovery and seeing the results of your teaching.
I would like to share with you a special moment from my early teaching days. Travel maps were handed out to my students in a special math class and they were to pretend they were planning a trip to a city of their choice! Most of the students were from low-income families and never had the opportunity to travel. They chose the type of car they would be driving and then call a car dealership to find out how many miles per gallon it would get. They used their math skills to calculate the distance between cities, how much gas money it would take to get there and how to figure out if the dealership was telling them the truth. Some of the students had never seen a travel map before! They also learned new words and symbols and how to plan a trip from those maps. These students talked about that lesson the rest of the school year. Every time it was mentioned, it brought a smile to my face.
Recently, one of my online business students was very apprehensive about going online. Blogging and social media were overwhelming and too personal. Through our sessions she learned how to set up a blog, post to a blog, upload photos and how to be interactive on the internet. She did not like some of the social media formats, but through the training sessions she was convinced to try. Now she is glad she did.
So you can see teaching can be very rewarding. There is something magical about sharing the moment of excitement and enthusiasm when a student gets it! You can hear it in their voice and see it in their face when their eyes “light up”.
