I am quite a happy person and little things such as a new episode of Pretty Little Liars, Grey’s Anatomy, Modern Family or 90210 make my day. What makes my day even more is breakfast with my sons and hubby or seeing them after a long day at work. I can even think of smaller things such as a good coffee that I regularly buy at the café/bar of the Frajlemaborg building. And there is this other thing, that students might not think is so important to me, but it is. When students do well on their assignments or exams.
January is a time of the resit exams and deadlines and all the teachers are head over heels busy grading the exams, reports, assignments, theses. Busy time. Busy even though we do not teach. I try to grade everything as soon as I can as I know how nerve-wrecking waiting for the exam results can be. When a student does well, I cannot describe how proud I feel and I cannot wait to tell them how well they did and how they made my day. This is something students do not realize: we do not want our students to fail, we want them to learn and do well! We care. We care about those who try hard, who put effort and who want to succeed. It is a shame that many realise that studying does pay off after taking the same exam 4 times. It is too bad that students do not pay attention to our suggestions of starting to study throughout the semester and not leaving everything till the last minute, to take notes while reading a textbook etc etc.
The moral of the story is that a student doing well is not only a reward for the student, but us teachers. It makes us feel that we do something right, that it is worth spending hours on preparing the lectures, consultations, making exams, grading. It gives us a feeling of helping people become what they want to be, achieve, prepare for the cruel big world which is full of challenges, obstacles and disappointments, but also full of joy, rewards and valuable experiences.
It is worth smiling about all day, is not it?
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