Rewarding Experiences

I am ending the week with a couple of really rewarding experiences. Yesterday in my morning class, we finished class with one of my top two favorite activities of the semester. It was rushed and might have made a bigger impact if I had had about 10 minutes more classtime. However, my talking through those 10 minutes might have ruined it, so you never know. But even rushed as it was, I think it was one of those rare moments when students say, "ah." As I looked at the students, instead of trying to pack their bags early or finish their conversations on IM, they looked like they were really thinking about big picture issues (the exercise revolved around personal ethics and decision-making).

The second experience came in the early part of the afternoon, when one of my former students came to visit. This student graduated last year and used her lunch break to come back for a visit. I had this student in classes three of my first four semesters at this university as well as the summer between my first two years. We talked about what she's doing now, the classes I'm teaching, this group of students. She was part of a class of students ('08 grads) that were juniors when I started at this university, which meant they were just getting into the parts of the curriculum that I teach. That class has a special place in my heart as one of the first cohorts that I have taught. I'm excited about the students that I have now, and they really are great students. But the '08 cohort was uniquely special to me.

Both of these experiences brought the week to a great end. I had to go to the dentist today, which threatened to ruin the joy, but those two experiences still stand out.