Back to School

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MY TEACHER SELF VS MY STUDENT SELF

For teachers, the start of the year is not January, rather September, when the schools open. I am back to school, yet as a student this time. Apart from being stripped off the title I have earned in earnest over a decade, within a few weeks I have come to admit that being a student is far more nerve-breaking than being a teacher- at least in such an education system in this country. My student self is dissecting my teacher self into pieces. Very harshly, I should say.

Why on earth would I insist that the class is over only when the lesson is over? Why did I never pay attention to their begging when my students said they were exhausted? Is it something to do with aging that I no longer feel like a superwoman who could teach up to 10 hours a day when necessary but more like a poor mortal who could fall asleep in class or beg the teacher to end the class early?

Why on earth would I insist that the class is over only when the lesson is over? Why did I never pay attention to their begging when my students said they were exhausted? Is it something to do with aging that I no longer feel like a superwoman who could teach up to 10 hours a day when necessary but more like a poor mortal who could fall asleep in class or beg the teacher to end the class early? Terribly ashamed of my student self. Is this the curse of my former students? Or is there something terribly wrong with the formal education system that has turned me into a frustrated, unhappy student? Was I too young to criticize the system when I was an undergrad? In less than a month, it becomes clear that being a student at heart has nothing to do with being a student at school:) In a nutshell, yes to education but no to formal education as we today know it. Just food for thought.

For paper work, I had to run back and forth between my former university and the new one. In the memory of good old days, I photographed Boğaziçi University, where once upon a time I thoroughly enjoyed being a student.

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