NaBloPoMo: The things we do
November 23, 2009emily No Comments »This semester, I’ve been helping a former student edit some assignments for one of her history classes. Her Teaching Assistant, it seems, can’t help but express his annoyance and exasperation at having to (gasp!) answer students’ questions and pretty much makes it clear that he isn’t interested in helping her. She’s a great student– smart, witty, and deeply interested in history– and I’m more than happy to help. But I mentioned to John the other day that I found it funny that her TA seemed so disinterested in helping students. Why would he want to be a teacher, I wondered aloud, when he so clearly dislikes teaching? To which John answered, maybe he doesn’t want to be a teacher. Which, of course, is a valid point. Certainly not everyone who gets a PhD and goes on to become a professor in their area wants to teach. Many would rather work on their own research full-time and would gladly do so, if only it paid a non-zero amount. And that got me thinking about myself (natch). I got into this, erm, business because I love history. Because I worked in the “real world” for a few years after college and could feel my brain oozing out my ear as I wasted away answering phones and churning out form letters. (No offense to the secretaries of the world.) Luckily, my department has fully funded my graduate education in exchange for teaching. And, happily, I’ve discovered along the way that I really enjoy teaching. I love being in front of a classroom, I delight in teaching students about our vibrant history and its colorful cast of characters (like Sylvester Graham who, concerned that Americans were having too much sex, invented Graham Crackers as part of a bland diet system aimed at steering them down a more virtuous path), and I truly enjoy helping students. So I guess I’m lucky that I like what I do. What about you– do you like what you do?
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