I love teaching

Now, I usually love teaching at the beginning of the semester when students come in without any prejudices and anger about grades, etc. I love getting to know them and realizing that they really are learning something from me after all. This love generally deteriorates towards the middle of semester and goes away completely when students a. cheat b. complain about their grades c. have their moms call me to complain about their grades or a myriad of other issues. This semester I've gained a new perspective on teaching, however. For the first time in my entire teaching career, I have students in my class who I've had in the past, so there's a bit of a relationship with them already built up. Of course, one cheated and one complained about a grade in the past, but they still seem to be fairly eager and unprejudiced about this new class (and the cheater has to know that I'll be checking his work two or three times to make sure he doesn't do it again). I've also had students from last semester stop by to see how things are going, chat, ask for letters of recommendation. This has never happened to me before, either. At Pac 10 or Big 10 schools, there isn't as much personal attention - you rarely see the same people twice in a month unless you are in class with them. Here, I see people I know all the time, several times a day. I think I like it!