milton academy

This year marks my 20^th year of teaching. It has been a total blessing. I have talked a lot about it here, but there should be at least some celebratory comments.

The first observation is that teaching is a vocational endeavor; if your heart is not in it, you will struggle and not be the best teacher for your students. I have taught almost 50/50 in secondary and university settings with brief stints in Middle school, and even primary school! (Read about it here.) My observation is that most teachers do it because they love it —we don’t do it for money. If you do not know if teaching is for you, try it out!

I have said this ad nauseam: all teaching is relational. We learn from a place of trust, that trust comes from the teacher-student relationship and that relationship comes from the teacher being open, better yet, vulnerable (within boundaries, of course), and honest.

Just because students are not masters of the subject matter does not make them stupid; they can see right through the teacher if you do not know the subject matter, regardless of your teaching style. So know and prepare your material, and if they ask something you do not know, get back to them with an answer. This recently happened to me, no shame in it.

Something that always motivates me is thinking of who I consider to be the best two teachers in history: Socrates and Jesus. They did not have hi-tech classrooms, which makes me always ask myself: Could I teach this with just a stick in the sand? If the answer is no, then I must rethink my lesson plan. Everything else on top of that is glitter and show…

I could probably write a book about this, but for now, I hope you liked this blog post.

So while not every moment of my 20-year teaching career has been easy, I am looking forward to the next 20, let’s go!!

This is the first year in a long time that I am not coaching nor even playing football (soccer for the Philistines on the other side of the pond). Instead I get to see all my nephew’s games from the stands – and it is fun!

For fourteen years I coached soccer. One of the first schools I worked at (Milton Academy) needed an assistant Boys Varsity coach, having played more or less all my life I got the gig! Walnut Hill being an arts school did not have an athletic program, but that did not stop us from playing pickup on Friday afternoons, we had a blast. And we found out that future K Pop star Eddy Kim had a lovely touch! At Buckingham Browne and Nichols they needed a Girls Varsity Assistant coach, that changed my whole perspective on the sport. I had never payed much attention to girls soccer, but I quickly found out that they play as a team much more than the boys do. They pass the ball much more, and big plus, they look like they are listening to the coach!

At UNC I really had the football bug, so I organized the Romance Studies Community Soccer program to play on Friday afternoons. This was a great way of getting the grad students together with some undergrads and different folks that would join. It was good fun and occasionally a bit competitive which gave it a good edge!

At Seacrest Country Day in Naples Florida, I was honored to be the Head Girls Varsity coach. These girls worked super hard and we had a great two seasons, building a team. Since Seacrest is a small school, the sense of community is very big and I really felt embraced by the team. Occasionally I would step in to help out the boys’ team. One such time was the District final game which we won for the first time in history. What a thrill to have been on the sideline of that game!

Now back in the old country I miss coaching, but every Saturday with my sister and sometimes my nieces I enjoy just watching my nephew play! It is all the fun, without the responsibilities, and, of course, I get to critique the coaches – and the players!! Vamos Chamar!!