How to Succeed in Coursework

My goodness. How shall I lay out this bank of new things I've been experiencing lately? This is my first year of teaching undergraduates, which is gratifying. From talking to other graduate students, I've noticed that there are two ways to approach undergraduate teaching: you can judge your students for being coltish and uncultured and raw and unruly, develop adversarial relationships with them, complain about their inept writing and perhaps post some choice quotations from their writing on Facebook, OR you can come to terms immediately with the fact that your students barely notice that you're alive and don't care a fig about your subject, and make it your job to get them to engage with class material even a little bit. When this happens, you are overjoyed and completely satisfied with your life. I, for one, am amazed that my students are even there in the first place, alive right in front of me and speaking to me, with their own distinct smells and goals and aspirations. It's amazing. I feel like a child discovering the world. I am humbled and exhilarated when they opine on any subject. Teaching is definitely for me.