I Love Teaching Freshman

I love teaching freshman. I just do. Yesterday, was the start of our quarter here @UWT, and for about 25 of my 35 students in Introduction to Social Work, I was their professor of their first college class. How cool is that!? While they may forget my name, they will never forget this day (or at least not for a long time!).

So, what tone did I try to set? That education is serious business, an opportunity that will shape them over their lifetime. Yet at the same time, that we can and will have fun. That they can be both safe and brave. I tell, them, and show they, that we will laugh, we will make mistakes, we will all grow. We get to be who we are today, we don't have to know exactly what the future will bring. We get to stay in the process of learning growing being. 

They don't have to be perfect, but they should care, try, and I will help them care and help them to try.

There are times when I get sick of the grind of teach; let's feel about them when it comes time to grade!! I have been in the classroom twenty years. Yet, days like yesterday, with "my" freshman, hep me remember the magic of teaching, of learning, of being alive.