Thoughts on ending my first semester of teaching (and the Three E's of my pedagogy)

Wow.
I can't believe I'm even able to write that title. I definitely never saw myself teaching at the college level (wow, again), even as an assistant. The things that I've done and learned this year in pedagogy have boggled my mind a little, and sometimes I don't know if I've learned more from my time in class on Tuesday nights or from my time at the front of the classroom. It's been nothing short of intimidating trying to use the thoughts and writings of so many great minds in my little classroom.

Now I have one week of classes left with my students, and I want to leave them with something really good. Something that will combine absolutely every single thing I have learned over this semester, like a giant perfect-pedagogy-communication-smoothie.

Ok, that's a little optimistic, but I do want to use this one last chance (until the spring) to use what I've learned this semester to benefit my students. In this last message on language, culture, and power, I want to leave them with a few things.
1. I want to encourage them. I want to let them know that their voice has power if they believe it does, and if they use the techniques that they've learned. I want to encourage them to keep learning, because someone who can only learn in a classroom isn't really learning at all.
2. I want to enlighten them. I want to at least begin to chip away at the iceberg of making them aware of the issues that they will face in the world, as well as the issues others around them will face that they may not see.
3. I want to equip them. I want them to have the tools they need to be rhetors for a better world. I would label these tools as: a curiosity about the world and communication, a compassion and empathy for the issues of others, and a competency with communication - how to construct a speech, get attention, build an argument, and spot rhetorical messages.

If I'm being honest with myself, not all of my students are going to leave my class with all of this. In fact, if I'm lucky, a few may walk out at the end of the semester with just a couple pieces. But I think I can live with that, as long as someone else can pick up the torch from there and keep helping my students build their knowledge and their world semester after semester. And, hey, I'm still pretty new at this. I'm only human. I know I won't be perfect at it...
Until next semester.

See all of you wonderful pedagogues in the spring.
#Highclass🎩