At the end of last Semester, I wrote a piece in which I reflected on discovering the joy and beauty of teaching as my vocation. I still credit that largely to the students I had the privilege of teaching in a particular unit throughout last Semester. But, having now taught over another Semester, bringing me up to a year and a half of teaching in total, it seems I have learnt another valuable lesson about teaching, and have continued to discover a deeper, more profound joy and meaning in this incredible vocation that I get to live out by the grace of God day in and day out.

I must admit, after having two incredible classes last Semester of students who gave me the grace of realising that I was right where I was meant to be, I didn’t think that would happen again too soon, if at all. Someone told me after I finished teaching last Semester that sometimes in teaching you just get really incredible classes, but then you don’t really get them again after that. To some extent, I believed that maybe the bard had been set so high that it would never be reached again.

Turns out, God wanted to prove otherwise.

This Semester has been one of the busiest I have ever experienced throughout all my years of study, and throughout my year and a half of teaching as a tutor in tertiary education. Every week has been filled with preparation for classes that I’m teaching, preparation for my own class that I’m taking, marking, emails, and thinking about how I can best approach teaching the content I have to teach each week. Teaching nine tutorials across four units across two universities while studying a unit of your own at a Masters level is, as I have come to discover, no mean feat. There have been countless late nights and early mornings. And there have been some days where pure exhaustion has hit.

But none of that is to say that it has not been worthwhile. Rather, quite the opposite is true. If anything, this Semester has been one of the most rewarding – not just because I’ve proven to myself that I’m capable of more than I ever thought possible, but for another reason entirely.

And this goes back to my initial point – I never thought I’d end up with classes who showed me the true joy and meaning of teaching again after last Semester.

But God proved me wrong.

This Semester, I have had the privilege of teaching three tutorials for CORE1000 Foundations of Wisdom at Notre Dame. This is the foundational unit in philosophy and theology that every student who enrolls in a program at the university is required to undertake. It is by no means an inherently ‘easy’ unit. It requires great thought, contemplation, and consideration of ideas that are not all that easy to grasp, particularly for those who have had no prior engagement with theology or philosophy. It’s a unit that I think many of our students come into with an attitude of “I just have to get this done so I can get my degree.” And to be honest, I get it. No one wants to really feel forced into doing something. They would rather do it because they truly desire to do it.

This Semester, two of the tutorials I was given for this unit were on a Thursday afternoon. By this point in the week, it’s pretty standard for students to want to be doing anything else other than be in class, especially a class they don’t necessarily want to be doing. Chances are most of them ended up in these Thursday tutorials because they weren’t able to get into any of the tutes earlier in the week, so it may well be this was their last choice.

Now I would even admit that by Thursday afternoon, these tutorials being my last each week, I was sometimes exhausted. But there was something about my Core Tutorials this Semester. There was something different. I just didn’t really realise it until the end.

When I began teaching at Notre Dame in the Core Curriculum last Semester, I told some people I had chosen to pursue teaching at a university level because, unlike secondary education, I would be teaching students who genuinely wanted to be in university classes because they chose to be. Someone pointed out to me at the time that, while that was true, I was teaching Core, which students had to do – they weren’t necessarily choosing to be there. And to be honest, that was true, and it was a fair point.

But my students this Semester gave me a completely new perspective. 

The students I taught in Core this Semester have shown me the true value of this unit. They have shown me that this unit is probably the most important unit we have at this university. Because while there are plenty of other units which students are choosing to take, and so actually want to be there for, CORE1000 is a unit where we can meet students where they are at, students who have had no interaction with philosophy and theology at all in their lives, students who are just beginning their academic journey, and guide them in such a way that we end up having a profound impact on their lives, and end up sparking a curiosity within some of them to explore these fields further. More profoundly though, we have a unique opportunity to connect with them human to human, and potentially guide them towards God, which is such a beautiful thing.

But most profoundly, we have the unique privilege of watching them grow as human beings in real time as they do their best to take on all they can to navigate the world and navigate life as best they can.

What I didn’t really expect was the impact these students would have on me this Semester.

It is these three tutorials, these 70 students, who have shown me that this unit has the power to change perspectives, to change lives even, and that God is continuing to work through me to meet His people in everything that they are. 

I don’t really like to refer to them as ‘students’ per se, because I feel like that term kind of puts them in a box, that it limits them in some way, that it almost makes them out to be a product that is being produced by a machine. Each one of them is a unique human person, with their own personalities, with their own gifts. Each of them is so incredibly valuable, and I know that each of them not only have the capacity to make a difference in the world, but they are going to go far and they are going to make that difference, no matter how big or small it may be.

I truly believe that there is a reason I was given these tutorials this Semester. And I truly believe there is a reason that each one of these wonderful human beings ended up in my classes. I just know God has been behind all of it.

When I went over to see my students and be there for them following their final Assessment this week, I had the opportunity to speak with most of them. And what I’ve heard from quite a number of them is honestly heartwarming, but also shows just how life-changing this unit can be. I have had students tell me that they would love to do more philosophy. I’ve had others tell me they want to explore theology more. I have had some students ask me perhaps the most profound philosophical questions I’ve ever had put to me in my life.

I have been challenged this Semester, but in the best way possible. All the late nights and early mornings have been so worth it for these amazing people I have had the absolute privilege of teaching. Even in those moments when I have felt so exhausted, I have always just wanted to give my best to my students, because they deserve it. And even though some of them have asked me some of the most challenging questions I have ever had to answer, I have never been more grateful for the opportunity these questions have given me to continue to learn and grow, not only as a teacher, but also as a person.

It never ceases to amaze me how God can bring people into your life that just change your entire perspective. I have never been more grateful for the opportunity to teach a unit in my life. These wonderful people have taught me so much this Semester. But most profoundly of all, they have taught me the inherent value of teaching, and just how impactful this unit has the capacity to be. I am so grateful to each and every one of them, and I can never thank them enough.

I am so grateful to be teaching CORE1000, and I hope and pray that I will have the opportunity to continue to do so well into the future. Because these are the students that need us the most. These are the people who might just need the very concepts we explore. These are the people who need someone who truly cares about them and who makes them feel like they belong and that they are welcome and who creates an environment that makes them feel like they can be open and express themselves and ask whatever questions they have on their mind and be curious right from the very beginning of their time at university.

I’m so glad I get the privilege of doing just that. 

I think, if anything, this Semester has taught me not only what I’ve already highlighted, by has continued to affirm for me the value of pastoral care as a teacher. It’s something I learnt from my own lecturers (who I am privileged to be working alongside in some capacity now), who showed me how demonstrating a high level of care for your students can truly change the way in which they approach a unit, how it can change their attitude towards it, and encourage them to want to be there, to want to learn, to desire to go deeper and truly understand what is being taught to them each week. That compassion, that understanding that students are also human, that they are just people trying to do their best with what they have, can make a world of difference in their lives and in their attitude towards their studies. It can make a student who feels overwhelmed by the content feel like they belong. It can create and nourish within a student who has no interest in philosophy and theology a desire to pursue further studies in these disciplines. It can help students who are dealing with significant levels of anxiety and stress to feel a sense of peace and comfort, like the pressure is off at least a little. It is that pastoral care element that I have found makes all the difference, and can change a student’s entire perspective on a unit or even on university education itself.

This unit has been the most enjoyable, fun, and rewarding to teach this Semester. It’s not every day that you miss going to work. But this week, with the tutorials being over, my Wednesday morning and Thursday afternoon felt strangely empty. I think that in itself just goes to show the impact this unit and these tutorials and the wonderful people within them have had on me as a tutor as well.

I am so proud of each and every one of my amazing CORE1000 students this Semester. I am so proud of the efforts they all put in to doing their best to understand, to engage with philosophy and theology, to showing up every week, and to doing the best they could to get through each Assessment. They have shown me just how much they can persevere, just how much they can push themselves, and just how incredible they are as the most kind, compassionate, intelligent, hard-working people I have come across in these last three Semesters of teaching. I am so grateful to them for what they have taught me this Semester, what they have taught me about being a teacher, and what they have taught me about being a person. And I hope that one day I’ll get to see them walking across the stage to be handed their degree on the day of their graduation.

This life, and this gift I have been given, is such a grace. And I am so grateful to God that I get to use this precious gift He has given me in such beautiful ways.

Being a teacher is so much more than just teaching. Oftentimes it’s these wonderful students who teach us so much more about ourselves than we could ever imagine. And so we’re all on the journey of life together, learning from each other, growing in our respective vocations but also in our lives and in the people that we are and the people we are becoming, and doing our best to navigate this world and this life that we have been given the grace of living.