Teaching is a very noble profession that shapes the character, caliber, and future of an individual. If the people remember me as a good teacher, that will be the biggest honor for me. ~ A P J Abdul Kalam
So tonight a cross-list between two of my blogs, The Ministry of Happiness and Higher Ed Mentor. Recently I met someone new, we got to talking. As we were talking we did what people do while talking with each other for the first time and asked each other questions. Many of the standard questions like where did you grow up, do you have siblings? And as often happens in these conversations the question swings around to spouses and children. And after explaining that I’ve never been married I inevitably get the comment, so you have no children then? At this point I usually throw in a comment about my eight nieces and nephews who I dearly love.
But this time a very different thought hit me in this conversation. I do have children, I have thousands of children, no, not in the biological sense, but in the educational sense. Likely this thought hit me because I’m nearing retirement and have been thinking back a lot lately about my career. So I decided to scan across the years and figure out how many children I have had. Kind of like the most boring episode of The Maury Povich Show ever.
I started my educational career at SUNY Platsburgh where in 1986 as an undergrad I was hired to teach a general biology lab section, my first 24 kids. That year I also did my student teaching experiences for my secondary teaching credential, Another 48 kids in my two 8th science classes and another 48 later that semester in many 10th grade biology classes.
At Eastern Kentucky University each semester I had five lab sections of Natural Science 101, so twenty sections in two years at 24 in each section, nearly another 500 students. The pace really picked up at the University of Tennessee for several years I would have 48 to 72 students per semester in class. Then, I became an academic advisor and would meet with, on average, 30 students a week for 16 weeks each semester, meaning for six years at UTK I was working with 1000 students a year not including a few hundred more each summer during orientation. While at Hartnell College, I had each semester 200 students in the MESA Program for three years and taught 48 person Ecology classes. So likely in my career I’ve worked closely with over 7,000 students.
So do I have children, yes, about 7,000. Of course it’s very different from actual parenting but none the less I like to think I had an impact on a lot of them, they have certainly had an impact on me and why it’s been such a wonderful career.
Higher Ed Mentor 