Learning Time

Look closely at this photo. The "Y" is made up of new students standing in the football stadium bleachers!

Today was my first day of school. BYU actually began their classes yesterday, but this semester I teach all four of my classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I have Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to do research and other things. It will be nice.

First days are always exciting. Seeing all those young, beautiful faces out there and knowing that in a few weeks they will be my new friends energizes me. I love it.

But it is also fun as the semester wears on to see the personalities of the students come out. I have the most interesting, talented, and wonderful students. They constantly amaze me.

But once in a great while there is a student who amazes me in negative ways like one student today who kept rolling his eyes in obvious disagreement and questioning the things I said--and mostly what we did today was go over the expectations for the class. I already know he isn't going to like my class. And that makes me think about how many times I've gone into a situation where I could have learned so much, but my negative or prideful attitude kept me from learning and enjoying.

Mind you, I have over 220 students and that was the only one who was openly negative. But I learned something from him and I'm excited about the more positive things I'm going to learn from the other 219 students during the semester. I'm not sure who learns the most in my classes, the students or me!