Made My Day

As I was leaving my econ class today that I had with Mr. Cocker he asked to see me before I left. Obviously I assume that this is bad, usually it always is. I had turned in a paper last week, that definitely wasn't my best so I thought he was going to say something about that. Then he started talking about my self evaluation, which is from my organizational behavior class that I have with him. We had a tutorial last week in which a group of five students sits down and discusses different issues presented in the course. I am beginning to REALLY enjoy them. At first they are intimidating, completely different from my past school experiences. No teacher usually cares that much to sit down and discuss and explore issues we learn about. Mostly they just have us regurgitate what they say in class on the test.

Mr. Cocker is different, alot of what we learn is class is relevant to the test (tutorials), but thats not the point. It to explore the different view points of an issue and be able to back up the argument with experiences and what we learn in class. Its basically amazing, he is teaching me HOW to think about stuff not just throwing out terms that I need to memorize. The situation often turns debate like when the students or Cocker don't agree with each other during the tutorial.

Back to the self evaluation. Anyway he pulled me aside to thank me for coming back to school after what happened with my mom. Then he asked how I was doing. This wasn't a pity ask at all. This was a I truly want to know how you are dealing with this ask. On my self evaluation I talked about how I could connect my future plans into what we talked about in the tutorial rather than just past experiences. He said that I have alot of potential. This was not a, "why are you failing...you should know you have alot of potential," situation. It was also not a you need to have more confidence in what you have to say because what you have to say has substance either. He was being serious. He said I had really good reasoning that I presented during the tutorial.

Mr. Cocker, while often confusing from a student standpoint, is one of the most intelligent people I have ever come across in my life. Quite possibly could be for the rest of my life. Sometimes his classes are a tad boring because of the material, but what he has taught me is how to develop and argue an issue. For some reason I have never learned this. Yeah I have had to write papers. But it makes more sense to test us verbally on the spot because thats how it will be in life and in the workplace. We won't walk back to out desks at our job and whip out a five paragraph essay. We will have a conversation with someone and build off of what each person presents about the issue.

It was extremely flattering for no reason at all to have a teacher tell me I have potential. It means so much more coming from someone else.