I arrived on the campus of the U of AL, Freshly graduated from UGA. I quickly discerned that, "I was among the best TEACHERS ever to inhabit U of A."
In retrospect, I understand my sentiment better now than then. I come from a family of teachers and teaching is in my blood. I enjoy preparing to teach, and I thoroughly enjoy teaching. As I have said before, I find teaching poorly to be easy, but teaching well to be highly challenging.
I was teaching away some pretty challenging material in my undergrad course in exercise physiology and the term was ending. One of my students, Jim, was about my age and worked on the railroad. He was a good student and when he showed up at my office, I was happy to chat.
After i had answered his question, I posed one to him, "Jim, how did you like our Exercise Phys class?"
I expected a glowing review, but Jim hadn't gotten that memo.
For about the next 10 minutes--which seemed like an eternity--he correctly noted several major errors in my pedagogical technique.
I was devastated.
In my old age, looking back at my career, it is my opinion that MOST profs want to create a LEGACY. They want, like me, to be the best teacher ever. Smarter profs realize that there is NO reward for teaching well in research universities, so they want to leave a legacy in research or granstmanship. They want to be "KNOWN" and even better, they want a Lab or even a building named for them in recognition of their greatness.
Well, Jim did me a great favor. After his BLISTERING review, I realized that my BEST opp to leave a true legacy was to be "salt" and "light" as a Follower of the Christ.
And, I think that is the ONLY true legacy, since every student, every colleague is an eternal being with only 1 of 2 possible eternal destinations. Think about it.
What's your legacy?
In retrospect, I understand my sentiment better now than then. I come from a family of teachers and teaching is in my blood. I enjoy preparing to teach, and I thoroughly enjoy teaching. As I have said before, I find teaching poorly to be easy, but teaching well to be highly challenging.
I was teaching away some pretty challenging material in my undergrad course in exercise physiology and the term was ending. One of my students, Jim, was about my age and worked on the railroad. He was a good student and when he showed up at my office, I was happy to chat.
After i had answered his question, I posed one to him, "Jim, how did you like our Exercise Phys class?"
I expected a glowing review, but Jim hadn't gotten that memo.
For about the next 10 minutes--which seemed like an eternity--he correctly noted several major errors in my pedagogical technique.
I was devastated.
In my old age, looking back at my career, it is my opinion that MOST profs want to create a LEGACY. They want, like me, to be the best teacher ever. Smarter profs realize that there is NO reward for teaching well in research universities, so they want to leave a legacy in research or granstmanship. They want to be "KNOWN" and even better, they want a Lab or even a building named for them in recognition of their greatness.
Well, Jim did me a great favor. After his BLISTERING review, I realized that my BEST opp to leave a true legacy was to be "salt" and "light" as a Follower of the Christ.
And, I think that is the ONLY true legacy, since every student, every colleague is an eternal being with only 1 of 2 possible eternal destinations. Think about it.
What's your legacy?
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