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Confessions Of A Teacher |
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Written by Richard Joffray
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Monday, 12 June 2006 |
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Fourteen Years of Interest It has been a long and grueling fourteen years of teaching. Although I have only taught one four hour class a week for the last fourteen years and have managed to stay interested in the process of teaching despite the odds that by this time I would be totally sick it. In the reflection of these years I can now see that there are a number of things that have allowed me the pleasure of teaching for such a long time.
The fact that I am a self-employed freelance web developer and
part-time teacher has allowed me to live on an island and away from the
fast paced life style that most other professionals of my kind find
themselves. My daily lifestyle affords me to keep my own hours and
still be a single father during the lit hours while sometimes working
through the night. I have never looked at what I do as work, but rather
a hobby that I get paid for. Long walks on the beach between sitting in
front of the computer, fixing three meals a day, keeping house and
fatherhood has been a great balance. My day would also never be
complete without a visit to the neighborhood coffee stand for a little
adult social interaction.
The first thing I realized when I started to teach the first HTML
Scripting class many years ago was how much I enjoyed what I was doing
and how much I wanted to share that with my students. Working as a
professional in the industry as well as teaching part time has been a
good balance that requires for me to reflect on my own processes in
order to share them with my students. Whenever my freelance work has
been slow I have used that time to research new techniques and invent
new web development systems. This has kept me on the cutting edge as
well as informed for my students. This also perpetuates into my
professional career and allows me to share those projects with my
students.
The balance between life, work and teaching has so far been my greatest
secret to a continual interest in all three of those areas
individually. The synergy produced by the interaction of all three has
perpetuated by carrying me into a Masters program in teaching. My
continual interest will be totally reliant on my research, professional
development and teaching in the future. Next I might even consider
further educational goals for myself such as a doctorate program. Who
knows ... I might even make something of myself one day.
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