“I understood part of teaching is being a vampire. You draw on your students’ energies, and you learn just as much as you teach.”
– Hua Hsu, Stay True
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“Because Hollywood was just an option instead of teaching, which I simply couldn’t do temperamentally. All your energy being sucked out. You’re a walking blood bank for students, which you understand and respect, but for writing you have to save up for yourself and silence until the right time to release it.”
– Jim Harrison, “A Conversation with Jim Harrison” in Northwest Review, Vol. 33, No. 2, 1995, pp. 106-18.
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Any situation can be experienced in multiple ways.
With teaching it’s often either/or.
You’re either energised by the students, or they completely drain you.
Either you are the vampire, feeding off of their vitality or they are the ghouls sent to feed on you.
Some days you’re the one receiving a transfusion from the energy, enthusiasm and spontaneity of your youthful students. Other days, it feels like they’re out to bleed you dry.
It’s a simple switch: from one to zero; on or off; a valve that allows one way passage of blood.
The determining factor in which way it is switched is my attitude.
If I’m feeling vulnerable, tired and reticent to be there, then I’ve switched the switch. I’ve given the students power over me. They sense my weakness.
My blood is drained because of my own self pity.
But if I walk in there with excitement and gratitude, then I receive nourishment.
Because at its best, teaching is improv. I Perform for an hour. I take that energy, like a performer on the stage. Adrenaline kicks in, I’m energised and when I stop, I feel like I could do it all over again.
I get to be Count Dracula. Term time only.
Conversations With Quotations 