Introspesction

It’s been a hard day today. I still find it surprising how exhausting teaching is. Performance is exhausting I guess… I had to teach something I haven’t taught before and for this I had to wear a thick mask so that students would not see how little I actually knew about the subject.
I am a little bit of a dreamer when it comes to the ethics of teaching and learning. I would expect nothing less from my teachers than to be absolute experts in the field they were teaching. However, it is not like this. Throughout the years I have learnt that no matter how little I knew about the subject, I still knew more than my students. And I have learned that teaching is not about delivering information but about coaching students to learn on their own.
However, this to me is little consolation when I am in a situation where I have to teach something outside my expertise. I do feel obliged to wear this expert mask all the time… Today it nearly hurt … J said one night that her face was hurting from wearing a mask for the world… I now know how it feels like.

And tonight I felt like I needed to unwind big time. I was in my office at some point, with a few students waiting outside my door and all I could feel was my face melting or my mask melting down. All I could think of was a nice meal jn a restaurant… Pizza and beer. Nothing fancy. I now feel good eating my pizza and ignoring the humming of others who are enjoying their meal. I a starting to feel like myself again…
“he took a face from the ancient gallery and he walked on down the hall” – amazing quote from the doors…

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