I want to take a minute to expand upon my current obsession with Detroit Tigers Baseball. From as far as I can remember, I never really had a hobby or anything that I would do regularly for leisure. Immediately after high school, I went to college. Every summer during college I came home and took classes at the local community college. Immediately after college, I went to graduate school. During graduate school, I took summer classes and worked during the summer. After graduate school, I started working part-time at six different colleges simultaneously. Yes, one semester I taught 38 credits combined between all of the colleges.
The point is that I have worked hard for the majority of my life without a summer break or evenings and weekends free for as long as I can remember. So, as far as I am concerned, this new full-time position I have right now has been treating me very, very well. I get to focus more of my time on making things as good as I can for my students, without having to worry about jetting off campus down the road to another college to teach yet another class. It feels very good to be able to do all that I have been able to do for my students so far in just the one year that I have been at my college. But I know there is more that I can do. There is always more that I can do.
However, the one realization that I have come to recently is that I cannot do more for my students without doing more for myself as well. I have realized that it is time to reward myself a little bit for all of the hard work that I have done to get to where I am today. All of the experience that I have gained over the years of being in school year-round and teaching year-round has paid off as I now have a plethora of knowledge that I can draw from to help me figure out the best teaching methods for my students. But I think it takes a little more than this to make me a good teacher. It takes more than just education and knowledge. It takes a little bit of personality.
And somewhere along the line I think I may have lost a little bit of my personality in the stress of going to school and working all year long. So, it is time for me to not only reward myself a little bit, but also my students. It is time for me to pick up a new interest – something that I can talk about in the classroom openly with my students to bring a little of my own personality into the discussion. For me, this interest has become Detroit Tigers Baseball. Who out there can’t relate to baseball? Even if someone doesn’t like baseball, I think that there has to be at least some sense of pride that someone has in their home team. I truly believe that baseball can help bring people together and I have no regrets that I have chosen Detroit Tigers Baseball as my new interest.
