Week Eleven: Intrinsic Rewards

This week was a rather unconventional week. It was my first experience attempting to co-teach in the field (I've done it in education classes before, but not with a cooperating teacher), I missed field on Thursday and class today due to illness, and now I am home recovering for the weekend. I probably would have written an extensive account of my co-teaching experience today were it not for a conversation I had with my dad this afternoon. Teaching and education are rewarding in so many ways, but I think sometimes we focus on what happens in the classroom and forget that there are an infinite number of ways that education can touch our lives without ever setting foot in a classroom.

As I mentioned in a previous post, my dad was a key resource when planning my topic lesson presentation and became my inspiration for the ineffective group work activity in my presentation. I had had every intention of giving him a full report (including Sam the "clown" and Dexter, our favorite "self-confessor"), but it completely slipped my mind...until he asked about it this afternoon. I gave him an animated account of the lesson and activities, and his face lit up! It was the most wonderful thing...to see how excited he was and how happy he was to be a part of it all. When my mom got home from work, he asked if she'd heard about the lesson and when she hadn't, he launched into an explanation of the lesson that HE inspired. THAT was my intrinsic reward for the week!