Hotashi

I had a really awesome conversation with the professor I’m working with (as her teaching assistant). She told me about the teaching world and the issues female teachers have to deal with. And she gave me advice about how to deal with students, which was really helpful. But she also said something that gave me so much reassurance in myself. She said that she would be lucky if she got to teach about all that she had planned to. This made me realize that as much as professors look like they are in complete control, they’re not. And that makes them so much more human and well, real. I remember for the first few years of university I was scared of my professors. I thought they were too smart for me and I was in no way qualified to even talk to them. I wish I had learned sooner how approachable they really are (although some are just jerks - I won’t deny that). When I heard her say that I was relieved to know that it’s not the job of the professor to spoon feed you all the information. It made me want to teach too, because there isn’t the pressure of having to know everything. And quite frankly, those who think they know everything are just full of it.

Another awesome thing that came out of this conversation was that she asked if I wanted to give a lecture. Now normally I would soil myself just with the thought (because there are over 200 students in the class), but because I will be lecturing on “race” and ethnicity (which is my area of specialization), I will actually be able to give a half decent lecture. I’m so excited to do it because I can talk about whatever I want…aka I don’t have to summarize the chapter reading. I can even talk about my research. Anyway, I will probably blog about it later. But I just wanted to say that I am really looking forward to it. =)

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