Superficially, I could not be much more different than my students and while I would love to be their age again I would not want to their age or anywhere close to it and attempt to teach English 101. While being a male surely gives me some unwarranted authority in the classroom my age also allows for some separation in experience making it more natural for me to have that position of instructor. The downside of being 12 to 13 years older than them is that I cannot necessarily relate to them on a personal level, but I find this difference to be purely trivial as do not think relatability makes or break a teacher as far as their relationship with their students.

The difference that is within my control lies in how I view myself relative to them in regard to knowledge. This quarter I have actually found myself enjoying learning alongside my students compared to last winter when working from a position of authority and not knowing everything terrified me. Learning with my students is a hell of a lot more fun than clinging to the notion that I need to be some kind of fountain of knowledge. This approach also seems to make my students more at ease around me making for a friendlier, more fluid learning environment.

As instructors I think we can focus on all the negatives that come from differences with our students, but we can often also find ways to take those perceived negative differences and make them unimportant or even better transform them into strengths. It all depends on where we want to spend our energy…