Until last month, I was definitely a student. Sitting in my seat, listening to the professor for the most part, and surviving through classes. But all of that's changed. Now that I am a graduate student, I hang out with other graduate students, some of whom actually have classes to teach, and others who lead tutorials. And all of a sudden, I identify myself better with teachers. And some things that I found weird make sense now.
I had this evil teacher back in grade 3. She would yell at me (and the other students) to the point I came home several times crying. She seemed to hate us all, and we were really careful not to make any eye contact with her. And I wondered, why is she a teacher? Does she even have friends?
Well, someone put the answer in a single sentence: "If they think you're nice, you're done for." Somehow, that obvious fact never occurred to me. Of course, if they think you're the nicest person on earth, they're going to try to take advantage of you. So even the nice people have to put their foot down, and make sure they have the control of the class.
Which makes me wonder whether I'll develop some alter ego that is most likely not as nice as myself (not that I'm particularly nice, but still), and probably hated by some students. And now, it amazes me more that there are still plenty of nice teachers around.
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I had my first tutorial yesterday ... I think even I'm too nice, despite the fact that I'm not really all that nice. One guy told me that I looked flustered and another guy asked me if being a TA was a even real job. It has been suggested by a mutual acquaintance (of me and J) that, seeing as their class of 60 had 2 girls, they were likely hitting on me ... but that does not make it better!
ReplyDeleteI think girls have it worse. For some reason, students seem to think it's easier to be rude to female instructors?
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