What was your most rewarding teaching moment?

I’m a CPR/BLS instructor. At the end of a class when I ask everyone if they feel comfortable with what they’ve learned, and if they had to, could they perform basic CPR, or a Heimlich maneuver, or any of the things I’ve taught them and they tell me “Yes, I feel like I can do it. You explained it in a way I can understand.”

Teaching the cat to stay out of my office. (They said it was impossible to teach cats.)

I love it when someone can hold a conversation with me on whatever subject I teach… Mostly chess, and PBS Nova subjects

When a student I had taught in a course on immigration novels told me the course had made her more openminded.

Watching kids that i taught at a theater camp correct them selves when ever they would mispronounce somthing

we would spend a lot of time working on diction, and they got it!

I’m doing a lot of volunteering in for the 1st grade teacher I’ll be student teaching with in the fall. It’s not really a teaching moment, it made me really happy when the kids realized I they wouldn’t still be in the class and were really disappointed. I think of me as bumbling around helping them at centers and reading to them and stuff, and I guess they think of me as an important adult in their lives.

I don’t have a teaching degree. I am a CPR/BLS instructor. But my love is for leading exotic animal classes with live specimens, and I also teach my daughters everything under the sun of the local fauna. I’ve educated about Georgia’s endangered brown bat, bobcats, raccoons, honey bees, hummingbirds, countless snakes – venemous and non venomous, lizards, spiders, newts, alligator snapping turtles, box turtles, various birds, fish (not as easy as it sounds!), possum, skunks, moles, chipmunks, shrews…..anything indigenous to Georgia, I’ve nursed it back to health and educated on it, then released it back into it’s native habitat.

My daughter’s and I have our own capture and release program. We call those Bon Voyage parties. My favorite times are when I see wonder, curiosity, and sheer joy replace fear that was on everybody’s faces when they first came in. By the time classes are over, nearly 100% of those in attendance walk away understanding why those animals exist, and are firmly resolved in preserving them. Those are incredible, fantastic moments for me.

I’ve had some great students already in my short career, and it really is rewarding when you see a student growing in confidence and skill. I think my proudest moment was making it through my first year as a teacher, and just looking back and realising how much I had grown in confidence and skill!

The day I called my 5 month old puppy off a rabbit chase. I whistled for her and it was straight out of a cartoon: she dug her heels into the ground, made a U-ie and ran right back to me. That was nearly 15 years ago.

The hottest girl in class came to my office and said “I’ll do anything to pass your class.”