Nearly four weeks into my summer experiment in pedagogy, my students found my Twitter account as part of a classroom assignment and enthusiastically began to discuss--with a good sense of humor--some of the 140-character bits of my personal life. Terrified, I continued meandering about the classroom, hoping to retain some air of authority and even just a scrap of my dignity as a human being.
My fear subsided as my students, sensible journalists they are, shared the end product of the assignment--tweets from public figures they deemed newsworthy. Not one chose me as a public figure. Thank God. I'm not that important or interesting. Not that I ever thought I was.
But I've come to the conclusion that I cannot serve in this profession without blurring the lines between my public life and private life. Impressions, perceptions, reputations all at once seemed minimal compared with the full-scale relationship between a student and a teacher. Now that I know these people (not kids, not participants, but PEOPLE), I also know a bit more about me. I know enough to know that my entire identity comes through my teaching. And that's no accident. In my classroom, the structure builds upon individual personal relationships because people learn from people and not their reputations or caricatures.
To be continued after class.
0 comments:
Post a Comment