Who am I to teach? Finding my courage.

I talked in my last post about the book I'm reading for class "Teaching Interpersonal Communication" by Elizabeth Nattale. We jumped into the middle of the book to look at interpersonal theories but now I'm taking a step back to look at myself as a teacher.

Natalle questions the reader as to why he or she became a teacher and when they decided to do that. I guess for me, as I reflected on that question, I thought back to my days in primary school. I had always wanted to be a teacher but the idea of teaching at the university or college level had never even crossed my mind. It was a choice between a history teacher in secondary school or a primary school teacher. Although it was a given throughout my childhood that I would always come to college, I definitely didn't have the most concrete background as far as parental examples - not only am I a first generation college student but my parents didn't even finish our British equivalent of high school. So maybe that is why the idea of teaching at this level never even occurred to me.

Anyway, I took a year out after I graduated and worked as a teacher's assistant in a primary school. While I really loved the experience and valued the fun time I had, I saw the work of the teachers around me as something I did not want to do.

Then I came out to Boise State, a history major for my first year, thinking about becoming a history teacher. But through my studies I realized another career choice (it had always been between these two) and decided to switch my major to Mass Communication/Journalism to become a journalist. That gave me my first experience with Communication as a field and I began to love so many aspects of it, especially interpersonal. That lead to me coming back to study my master's degree after working as a reporter for a few years; while I loved the work, I felt that teaching at the university level suddenly became an option for me and I didn't want to put it off any longer.

Natalle also questions the reader as to what their strengths and challenges are as a teacher so I'll take a shot at figuring out some of mine.

Strengths:

• Personable - This helps me to relate to students.
• Positive - I can take most things and give them a positive spin.
• Passion - I really "get into" material, especially regarding communication, so I find I can sometimes pass this on to the students.
• Organized - As long as I have time to prepare, I can set myself a schedule and stick to it through the class.

Challenges:

• Soft voice - While I can be loud at times, I generally have a softer voice when teaching so I need to work on my vocals to project my voice effectively.
• Nervousness - Sometimes I can get flustered if we get off track or I lose my place in the outline so I need to practice being "off the cuff" to reduce this.

After that background, next I'll delve into my teaching philosophy.