Saturday, November 22, 2014
This semester I helped a Buffalo State PolySci professor coach two moot court teams for a tournament that will be taking place this weekend. Unfortunately, snow happened, and they aren't able to get out and go to Ohio for the competition. I'm sure they are disappointed, and I am disappointed for them, but here's the thing-- they worked really hard, and learned a great deal in the process, and that was what the point of it all was. The progress they made over the course of the time I was watching them was tremendous, and will stay with them for the rest of their lives.
Over the course of my sideline as a teacher one of the things I have learned is that the hardest thing to teach is delayed gratification. We have to work to get better at things, and in many ways the work we do to accomplish that-- to get better, is where the real value is. Every cross-examination, every brief, every oral argument is important for the immediate task but is even more important for the next case, because that becomes the platform that you build on for the next case. Alejandra, Yesenia, Heather and Katie worked damn hard, and they will be better at the next thing they do because they learned how to prepare. I'm really proud to have worked with them, and I hope they enjoyed it as much as I did. I think they probably did.
Over the course of my sideline as a teacher one of the things I have learned is that the hardest thing to teach is delayed gratification. We have to work to get better at things, and in many ways the work we do to accomplish that-- to get better, is where the real value is. Every cross-examination, every brief, every oral argument is important for the immediate task but is even more important for the next case, because that becomes the platform that you build on for the next case. Alejandra, Yesenia, Heather and Katie worked damn hard, and they will be better at the next thing they do because they learned how to prepare. I'm really proud to have worked with them, and I hope they enjoyed it as much as I did. I think they probably did.
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