I never realized how great it can be being a teacher.
Now, when I say teacher I don’t just mean someone who teaches you math and English. I am talking about anyone who has been in a position to pass along knowledge to another person, whether that’s coaching gymnastics, teaching piano or in my case photography.
Over the past three weeks, I’ve had the privilege of being a guest speaker for Boyle School’s Grade 8 art class and a EPC’s photography class, which was one of the more rewarding experiences I have ever had in my life.
I don’t know what is it exactly, but you get this sense of accomplishment mixed in with a greater sense of purpose, after bestowing wisdom onto a few students who love doing what you love to do. Yes, it sounds pretty cheesy, but honestly it is extremely rewarding.
The two talks I had with two of our local schools is not the full extent of my brief photo-teaching volunteerism. Since the beginning of November, I have been teaching two young photographers from Athabasca’s Thundering Hooves 4-H Club.
For the past five months, we have been meeting once per month going over the fundamentals of photography, such as their many different camera settings, finding the proper shutter speed and aperture balance to get the perfect exposure.
It may sound like a lot of work, but I had an absolute blast teaching these young photographers. Seeing their faces light up after showing them a few tricks I learned when I was their age really brought me back to my original love of photography.
As I am sure you are already aware the Thundering Hooves had their achievement day May 21, showing off their many projects they have been working on all year. I have to say, after seeing the work of my two “students” put on display and the amount of progress they have made throughout the year – it made me feel so proud. It made me feel like I, too, achieved something along with these kids.
Whether the students I have taught actually decide to pursue this as a hobby or career does not really matter to me. What matters to me most is the little bit of knowledge that I was able to pass along to another person. Hopefully that knowledge will stay with them for the rest of their lives.
Even if that bit of knowledge is “don’t forget to take off your lens cap.”
