I have taught in a few different capacities. Several of those have been ministry-related–small groups, sermons, Sunday school, etc. My first teaching assistant position was for Greek as an undergrad, where I often helped go through homework with students in class. In that position, in TA spots I had at Fuller Seminary and as a reader at UCLA, I occassionally helped students outside of class. At Fuller, I did take over a few classes for the Greek course I TA’d when the instructor had a baby. This fall, however, I will be responsible not just for grading or sporadic tutoring, but for guiding my own section of a class, week by week, through an entire quarter. I wasn’t expecting to get a TAship at UCLA because they are competitive to begin with and the California budget is somewhere in the ninth circle of hell.

Being an educator is the biggest reason I got into this business of academia, even if the research side of things does energize me as well. So, I am very excited to start getting my feet wet with a real classroom. The bad news is that I don’t know yet what I’ll be teaching. I will be assigned to one of the larger survey courses in the history department, perhaps Western Civilization or World History. That means that on a given week, I may know hardly any more than the students themselves. This is one of the challenges of the TA system at UCLA, but also an advantage. Such challenges will stretch me to discover how to teach subjects beyond my expertise, and I hope will give me more confidence to enter my first real job in a couple years.

But one step at a time. Maybe I should start boning up on Western Civ in the meanwhile.