Strength and fortitude

Anyone else in the January doldrums?

While the calendar tells me that we’re just back from the holidays, it feels like energy is low and spirits are lagging. It can be easy to get caught up in it – which makes it all the more delightful to find something like this (from a recent grad) in my mailbox:

“These people don’t know how to cite things!” Her indignant tone makes me laugh every time I read it: it’s messages like this one that help me to stay the course and remember that as long as I ensure that what I’m teaching is current and relevant, it’s okay that my darling students occasionally roll their eyes at citation review, or groan when we discuss the importance of keywords.

I know I’m not alone, so strength & fortitude, my friends!

PS. I’m lucky that this former advisee reached out of her own accord. As I mentioned in a previous post, don’t hesitate to specifically ask Gr 12s to get in touch with you next year if they find what you taught them landed (or even more importantly, didn’t) at university or college – or life. You can even request their non-school email addresses for this purpose before they leave 🙂

4 thoughts on “Strength and fortitude

  1. Yes! There is nothing better than a former student saying “I had to teach my whole study group how to use JSTOR. They had no clue!” Just one comment like that makes up for many classes of eye rolls.

Leave a Reply to Constance Vidor Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *