The Truth About the Most Inspired Happy Professor Posts

After looking through some of my blog posts recently, I thought I’d clarify a few things.

I’ll admit, teaching college students is not all sunshine and rainbows. There are plenty of frustrating moments and students that know how to push your buttons.

However, the students I meet with weekly in the classroom do inspire me 99% of the time.

These days I teach evening classes exclusively (which I prefer, since you tend to have older students who come straight from work and are there to better their lives- from what I’ve gathered over the last 8 years), and I only teach once or twice a week so that I give it my all, and can’t wait to come back for more. I’ve learned that ‘the classroom in moderation’ makes it incredibly fun and fulfilling, and works wonders for this happy professor.

Here’s where the blunt truth comes in: teaching online is not quite as inspiring.

There are plenty of days where online students send nasty emails, ask you why the copy and paste function isn’t working on their computer, email you 3-4 times if you don’t respond within 5 minutes, and generally treat you like a customer service rep who has wronged them.

These experiences make it hard to feel inspired, and this is why I stay in close contact with other teacher friends who work online- it can be hard, and you need the emotional support.

That’s not to say that online students or teaching online is generally ‘bad.’ I love it for the freedom it gives me, the fact that it helps me contribute in a financially significant way to my household, and that when I have children I’ll be able to do a job I’m good at and enjoy from my own home.

There are also plenty of incredible online students who I’ve established a connection with, are hard workers, respectful, professional, and those are the students I look forward to ‘seeing’ when they need me. These are the students who tell me they stumbled upon my blog and it made their day, or that they appreciate how organized and responsive I am as an instructor, and I even had one student the other day tell me I was ‘thebomb.com’ for helping her out with a difficult situation. These moments make me smile and brighten my day.

Even the students who send frustrating or inappropriate emails to the instructor don’t necessarily mean anything by it, sometimes they’ve had bad experiences with inattentive online instructors in the past and don’t know how to have their voices heard (I can’t imagine feeling helpless as an ignored students when your teacher won’t respond and your grade or upcoming graduation is at stake), and many students simply aren’t given the tools they need to take an online class or even understand how to write a professional and respectful email to instructors (we’re still in the Wild West of online teaching here- hopefully we’ll see some changes and better online student training in the next decade, but we’re all learning).

All this to say that, honestly, my face-to-face students just inspire me more (apologies to some of you wonderful online students I’ve had over the years!), and that’s generally what I’m drawing from when I reflect on the wonderful things in life here on happyprofessor.com. Online teaching is the future, and the pay, flexibility, and ability to work wherever you want can’t be beat- and you’ll also see those posts on this site, because that situation in itself can be freeing and inspiring in a whole different way.

However, there’s magic that happens in the physical classroom, the goosebumps when a student gives a speech unlike any they’ve given before, a student comes to your desk to ask if you’d coach them for a speaking event, or you see the mass of students in front of you turning into a family to help each other grow, learn, and become more confident learners.

That’s the stuff that makes me the happy professor.

Happy teaching, living, and learning :).