While I continue to work on my next blog post on designing a course on a budget+, I've been reminded of why it is that I do what I do...albeit not so closely with students anymore.

I read an article written by a former colleague in the Huffington Post. That article brought back all the memories, heartaches and triumphs of being on the front line as a teacher. It also brought back a memory from my adolescence and a time when my only confidant and greatest champion was a teacher...my Journalism teacher to be exact. As we worked to prepare our newspaper for print, I would spend hours in the evening at the print shop with her going over the proofs, as well as talking deeply about my fears and challenges growing up. She taught me so much about what it means to be a good teacher. It isn't necessarily about passing huge numbers of students...it's more deeply about being able to move your students in a positive direction. You can't do that with massive numbers of kids in your classroom, because your time is too divided.

As a teacher, I was able to relive those moments with my Journalism teacher, but then with me as confidant, as mentor and as guide. It felt good to be on that side of the learning opportunity, just as much as it did when I was a teen, but oh so much more rewarding.

I could not imagine a classroom with twice as many kids.

Bud's article also brought me back to a very personal moment in my time as a teacher, when  a student's mother called me at home one evening to tell me that her son was almost successful in his suicide attempt a few days earlier, but that he was feeling better and would be back to school in a few days...and to not worry. I curled up in a ball that night and cried my eyes out as I fell asleep.

I also remember a time when I thought there was nothing I could do to teach another one of my students, because he was always testing my limits. But, I allowed him to test those limits...with caveats. I saw potential in him...I only wanted to guide him in the right direction.  He went on to finish his Bachelor's degree in 2 and a half years and then while working as a grad assistant and Network Sys Admin, he wrote a letter to the superintendent of my school district pleading to save my program because he would not be where he was if it had not been for my program.

Teaching on a human level is all I know...and to know that it meant something to even one of my students made all the nay-sayers disappear in a puff of smoke.





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    I have been employing instructional design tricks of the trade since 1984, but haven't had the pleasure of the title until 2008. This blog is my way of sharing what I do to make the greatest impact with the information consumer.

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