I had a great teaching moment today. I think of myself as a . . . well, as a "good enough" teacher; not outstanding, but I hope I do more good than harm. I don't get massive amounts of positive feedback from students, so when I do get some, I treasure it.

Today in my class, I'd printed out the wrong attendance sheet, so I decided to have the students tell me their names instead of me calling them out. But there was one guy sitting in the class who looked really familiar, although I just couldn't place him. I knew I'd had him in class before, but I couldn't remember what class, or when. I did remember his name though, and I said, "You're J--, right?" He looked astonished.

After class, he came up and said that he couldn't believe I remembered him. I asked him what he'd taken with me, and when, and he reminded me that he'd been in one of my classes during the first semester I taught here (4 1/2 years ago). He said he'd looked for my name in the schedule book because he wanted to take this class with me. And then I looked astonished.

My first semester here was not particularly smooth, for a number of reasons, and his class in particular had seemed like a disaster to me - a 3-hour time block, beginning at 8 am, an hour which is just painful for me. I can get up at that hour, but I certainly can't sparkle. (But look at me now - just after midnight and rarin' to go . . . ) I hadn't taught face-to-face in about eight years at that point, and the students at my present institution are not very much like the students at my previous one, and I really wasn't sure I was up to the challenge. I spent a lot of time that semester convinced I had ruined my life by changing jobs.

Well, happily enough, I didn't ruin my life - quite the contrary. And it was enormously reassuring to see this guy again, and to entertain the notion that I probably didn't ruin anyone else's that semester, even though I thought I did an awful job.

And of course, now I'm even more motivated to do a good job this semester so that I live up to his faith in me . . .

One thing I really love about this job is that there isn't a day that goes by when I think I'm doing something unimportant. (And at the end of the day, that's really what propelled me out of my last position; as enjoyable as it was, I just didn't have that firm assurance that I was really doing something worthwhile.) And it's even better to think that I can maybe "add value" (as it were) even on my off-days . . .