Today has been a really good day, even though it started at 5:30 this morning (and I thought 6 a.m. was hard…) I had agreed to teach a class for a friend who’d had a death in her family and was unable to meet with her students. To make matters more interesting it was the first class meeting of the semester. She’d asked me on Monday if I could teach it and as the week progressed I stressed out a bit about it. I was relatively comfortable with the subject matter–multicultural issues in counseling–but I felt tired, stressed, and underprepared to teach it. (Anyone who’s been reading my blog over the past week knows I hadn’t been having the best week of my life…) Still, as I prepared my class outline, created the powerpoint presentation, and designed exercises–most of which happened after 4 p.m. yesterday evening–I felt pretty good about the class going into today.
I had asked my daughter if she wanted to come with me, partly because I said I needed her help, but mostly because I wanted her company. I tried not to pressure her to come, but when she told me this morning that she thought she would “stay put” at home I must confess I was a little disappointed. She later changed her mind and decided to come with me and the adventure was on. We grabbed a quick coffee and breakfast sandwich and headed off to the campus. As I got revved up and into the flow of the session (it was scheduled to last all day, from 9 a.m. until 4 or 4:30 p.m.) I felt more and more at ease and I was reminded of some very important facts:
- I really enjoy teaching–which in this case was more an exchange of ideas and information than it was me imparting a bunch of facts and concepts and my own brand of knowledge and wisdom.
- Because I enjoy it, I put a lot of myself, my energy, my enthusiasm into it and it often goes well. I am good at it. When I know my subject matter and have time to prepare, I am a good presenter/teacher/facilitator, etc. and people respond well to me. It’s really cool!
I am grateful to have agreed to take over the class today. Initially I was nervous and a bit cranky about the whole thing (it was one more thing I had to get through and get it over with…) but as the time approached I tried to improve my attitude about it. And in the end, by taking the opportunity and putting myself out there, I remembered that I do in fact have skills. It’s an unfortunate side effect of having been unemployed for a long time–one starts to wonder if they have any skills or competencies left. I’ve had moments of wondering if I was good at anything any more, and that many of my accomplishments felt far away and unreal. Contributing to the class today made everything real to me, reminding me “Yeah, you know how to do this…” And when I add the additional benefit of being able to come back to life in front of my daughter, that’s even better.
I’m not always clear about what I want to do, what I’m “supposed” to be doing, about my “what’s next.” But I do know that I am a teacher at many levels, not just in the classroom, that I have wisdom to share in a variety of venues and with various modalities. I am grateful to have had that zoom into sharp relief today. It’ll sure help me moving forward. I’m reminded of the quote from educator John Dewey, to which I’ve referred and spoken about many times. It was written nearly 90 years ago (1923): “To find out what one is fitted to do and to secure the opportunity to do it is the key to happiness.” I believe that each of us has inklings, indications fairly early on of what we’re “meant” to do with our lives. For various reasons some of us never discover or fully live into those inklings to become who we were meant to be, doing what we were meant to do. That makes my rediscovering my love of teaching, sharing wisdom, guiding, even leading individuals and groups a very important part of my reclamation/transformation process. I continue to look forward to seeing how this unfolds.
I am grateful to the group of engaged, interested doctoral students I was interacting with today. I am grateful for the presence of my daughter in the group, both contributing her own wisdom and experience (she more than held her own with the much older doctoral students) and in witnessing me in one of my elements. That was, as Rachel Maddow puts it, “the best new thing in the world today.” Amen!
