jannaireland.com
janna at jannaireland.com

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  I never complain about teaching on this blog because a) I love it, b) it’s rarely bad, and c) my students know how to use the internet. My husband (who teaches compulsory English and writing courses) has crappy teaching days ALL THE TIME because his students don’t want to be there, and I recognize that I am in the incredibly lucky position of teaching a fun subject to smart kids who are studying art by choice.

  One of the main reasons I decided to go to grad school was to learn to teach. I don’t expect to become a rich and famous artist (I mean, I’ll take it, but I’m sure as hell not counting on it), I just want to teach kids about photography and do my own work on the side and have a show every now and then.

  All that said, I had a hell of a teaching morning today. It was a good day overall, but one little incident had me really bummed out. I was feeling so low that I skipped the art history class I’m sitting in on to come home and watch tv and eat cake left-over from my mother-in-law’s birthday on Sunday.

  Then I received an email with my evaluations from last quarter attached. My heart started beating so hard! “What if they are terrible?” I thought. But they weren’t terrible. They were really, really good. Some of the students even wrote sweet notes directly to me, knowing I would see them. Exactly what I needed today.

  The general consensus from the students is that I need to speak up more. I am naturally shy, and last quarter was my first time teaching. Plus, the teacher I was working under is an amazing genius rock star, and I didn’t think that the students would even care what I had to say with her around. But they did. Duly noted, guys, I will work on coming out of my shell. And thank you so much.

  • #my life
  • #grad school
  • #art school
  • #mfa
  • #teaching
  • #education
  • #art
  24 Apr 2012 / 10 notes