We Impact Our Students in the Craziest Ways

The other day I sent a message to a former student who I had heard had recently gotten married.  We ended up chatting online for a few minutes and he mentioned that he uses something I said (four years ago) when he conducts training sessions.  I asked what it was and when he told me I had no memory of every saying it.  It wasn't one of my main teaching points that gets repeated every semester but an offhand comment that stuck in his head and became something he used in his own professional life.  I wonder how often this happens.

In the last several years I have started asking students what they learned in my class and how they might use the skills we practice in the future as a final exam question.  Sometimes students repeat verbatim things that I said during classes.  While it is flattering to hear that entire phrases were stored away in my students' heads it is the random nuggets that I didn't really assign much value to that reappear and startle me, like running in an old acquaintance out of the blue.

Whether I'm teaching a presentation skills course, a business course, or a writing course, I hope that my students take away the skills associated with that class's topic.  I also hope that they learn how to manage their time, take responsibility for their projects and assignments, and learn to behave like professionals.  If they learn how to be more successful and nothing else in my course I still consider it a success.  There are courses I took in university that I gleaned life lessons from but remember zero content from.  That still qualifies as time well spent in my book.  

I want to be an educator that helps my students learn, whether they have any interest in my course or not.  I often use this line when conducting teacher training workshops: "Our job title might be 'English teacher' but we are teachers first and foremost."  What will students remember about you and your course years later?