The joy of teaching

For those of you who don't know, I teach journalism at a local community college here in Toledo. I fell into the job quite by accident two years ago and quite frankly, it's the best damn job I've ever had. I had never taught before (unless you count the figure skating classes I taught in college), so the first few weeks of my first semester were admittedly a bit rocky. But I persevered and am now getting ready for my 2nd full year as a part-time college instructor.

There aren't too many perks to being a part-time instructor - we don't get benefits, we're basically expendable, the pay is not great at all, but damn it's fun work. I think the best part about teaching is the end result.

Every semester I get a small group of people who want to be writers, but are essentially at a loss about the basic concepts of journalism. They come into my class knowing only what they learned in English Comp (so not useful for my class) and are, I think, at times terrified of journalism. "What's a lead?" "Why does it have to be 35 words or less?" "You mean I can't put my opinion into the news story?"

We spend the semester learning about inverted pyramids, leads, nut graphs, proper grammar, proper attribution, hard news v. soft news, etc.; and by the end of the 16 weeks, the students who walked in without a clue, walk out knowing how to write a good news story. I've seen some amazing natural talent over the past two years...and am hoping to see more this semester.

So now, I can finally put the bar exam nightmare behind me and start preparing for the fall semester. My textbook has been updated and going through it today, planning out my lessons, I felt a great sense of excitement - I cannot wait until classes start again.