Small Makes My Day

Today, small allowed me to have a peak teaching experience. Not that I don’t usually enjoy teaching and appreciate my students. I do. But I haven’t taught in some time and was worried about how an all-day workshop I had scheduled would work out. Did I have enough material? Would it be relevant to most of the participants? Would they find what I had to say worthwhile?

I planned the day a week in advance, and meant to enlarge upon and improve the plan during the coming week. I could certainly think of more to offer the students—a few more important insights, an additional exercise to synthesize my approach.

But all week I avoided looking at my notes. Each time I thought about reviewing my plan, a shiver of anxiety coursed through me, and I turned to something else. Finally, the night before the class, I promised myself that I would wake up early and take one more hard look at what I had planned.

The next morning, when I found myself out in my office, sitting at my desk, I wasn’t able to do that. And I felt myself becoming more and more anxious. What if I didn’t have enough material? What if I had miscalculated? What if the day were a failure?

Then, at once, I knew just what I had to do: communicate, as much as possible, to the students that I wanted the best for them and their writing.

I know how to do that, I thought. And I know how much that will help them absorb whatever I have to teach them. And how much support that will give them once the workshop is over.

“Good luck. Hope it goes well today,” my husband said as I left the house to drive over to campus.

“ I know it will,” I said. And it did!