What is written on the first page is true--but really what my ideal teaching situation would be. The reality is sometimes not quite so happy. This is why I would like to discuss the points addressed earlier in order to see them from a different perspective.

Let us talk first about the importance of education. Yes, the pursuit of knowledge is an end in itself, and learning how to write is just one means of learning and acquiring a better knowledge of this world. This principle gives direction to my teaching, but I sometimes need to remember that some of my students are more interested in passing the class and forgetting about it than in learning much. While I would give time and efforts to take advantage of this opportunity given to me to learn something new, I do not think that many college freshmen are ready to do the same. And because of this, I am forced to find a balance between my dreams and my students' wishes. I cannot allow myself to become too enthusiastic and try to make everyone love to write and learn. I cannot expect my students to start thinking more than the minimum required in their daily life. I cannot start discussions that will be too philosophical or deep. If I did so, too many students would get lost, would give up, would not listen, would not even try, and I would be bound for discouragement. This semester, I have tried a new idea: the blog. I had hoped that my students could free-write about just anything three times a week on this online journal, respond to each others writings, and start an online conversation which would become interesting, thought provoking and a kind of forum to exchange ideas, serious and fun too. This ideal situation, however, did not take place and the entries all started with "hi everyone, my weekend was fun..." or "hi everyone, I don't know what to talk about today..." and all ended with "well, I don't know what else to tell you, see you in class." After half a semester, my students were bored and I was frustrated, so we decided to modify the requirement to make it more meaningful and interesting. Lois LeBar said, "What the pupils want to learn is as important as what the teachers want to teach." I guess I have not quite figured out yet neither what the students care to learn, nor how much time and energy they are willing to spend to reach their own goals. Consequently, my teaching is still a search for balance between how much I want to teach and how much my students are willing to learn. We try things, and it does not work, we try something different.

Let us talk now about what I call the "teach and be taught" principle. I strongly believe that my students can teach me much, and I am always more than happy to learn from them. In fact, since I started teaching Freshman Composition, I have learned a lot from my students about their lives, which are completely different from the kind of life I had as an undergraduate. Listening to their stories of life in the dorms, roommates, weekend parties, dating traditions, and other interesting facts that are so typical of the life of this age group, is an extremely enriching experience. However, I also realize now that I do know more than they do, especially regarding academics, and they are the students, which means that in the end, I must teach and they must learn, and nothing should alter this balance and this order. My students are not my friends, and even though having discussions about life is important, keeping our ultimate goal in mind is even more vital for the “health” of the whole class.

The last area I would like to discuss here is about the focus of my teaching. As I said before, I am very much against "specialization" in only one area, which goes against what is being taught in schools these days. Because of the globalization that is taking place in our world and increased competition, it seems that our students must become more and more specialized into one area in order to find their place in the job market. I, on the other hand, believe the oposite. I think that yes, it is good to have a strong knowledge of one's field, but it is also more and more important to know about other, unrelated or less related areas, in order to be more competitive, more unique, and less like everyone else. I told this in particular to one of my students who is a computer major. I told him that learning languages such as Spanish or French, taking Creative Writing classes in the English Department, or even volunteering as mentor for students in high schools would be of great help once he was looking for a job, because he would have a wider knowledge or life than other computer majors who had gone to the same school and learned the same things as he had. However, even though I strongly believe this principle, I realize now that I can  not force it on other people. Yes, I can tell my students about culture, literature, music, other countries, other languages, the stars, my love of learning, and many other things. Yes, I can try to make them realize that there is more out there than they think. And yes, I can try to force them to read and write about different topics. But in the end, if they don't want to learn, if they don't want to become interested in other things, and if they don't care to start thinking farther than they are used to, there is nothing I can do. I can not change my students. I can not force them to change their minds or see the light or understand complex issues if they don't want to. This appeared very clealy in our discussions about the war in Iraq. Some of my students even wrote in their journal entries that they did not want to learn more about the war, that they did not care to learn why some people were against the war, and that they did not care to understand what was going on because they had "elected the politicians who know what they do and the American people should only trust them and ask no questions."

So what? What do I do with my teaching? Well after a very enriching and very difficult year, I can only say that the gap between my ideal philosophy of teaching and the actual reality is still wide. I have not lost hope, though, and still believe that even though most of my students will take the bare minimum from what I teach and will never care about anything else, a few others will listen to "the extra stuff" and will maybe start thinking and become interested in what the world is about because of the way I teach and who I am. Maybe I now more strongly believe in the "teach by being the good example" principle, where I will not actually try to teach good learning principles to my students but only show that I am living by them... and hope.