The short passage on What I Wish my Professors Told Me seems to hammer home a lot of the same messages I have already been getting from my professors. I suppose my professors must be a step above the author of said passage. Of course, it is always nice to get additional guidance as well as reminders. The many points of the article were poignant but I believe that there are two that stick out most to me. One of these is the fact we are not just teaching students, we are educating them, preparing them for the outside world, more or less transforming their lives. Said transformation can be one that will set the student up for success for years to come, but with the wrong guidance that transformation may not become complete, or even worse it could lead to the wrong skill set for the everyday world. The other thing is the lack of finding a ‘perfect lesson’. As someone who is a borderline perfectionist in many of the things I do, I can definitely see myself falling into this trap. With a variety of different students, I could never create a perfect lesson for all of them, let alone myself. The mantra, “The kids will learn despite my mistakes” may be something I keep with me for quite a while.
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