October 22, 2017

Viktoria Dekany
Oct 22, 2017
5 min read

IT'S GREAT BEING A TEACHER!

By Viktoria Dekany, Interior Architect & University Design Teacher

My last post ended up being excited to wait for the first week’s lessons, and here I am: I've been successfully over it! Please welcome to my little summary of the exciting happenings of the recent days - however I would like to point out that the following lines have been shaped by my own intuitions and the opinions of people around me.

I’m over the Moon!

I can now assure you that my move to Spain was one of my best decisions in my life. The many positive feedback that I receive every day, make me indescribably happy and I feel I have found my place here. The mentality that the Spaniards represent is much closer to my heart than the haunted lifestyle in England - I can finally spend time on myself and not sleep 3-4 hours a day to complete all deadlines.

Over on the beginning

The university where I teach has developed very successfully and because of over-reporting, this year, it had to move to a larger building in accordance with the security rules. The new building is located in the heart of downtown, four-storey high and very well equipped. I did not feel so excited about the first lessons here, since I've spent a few hours in the old building in the last few weeks, although I did not meet all the classes. Well, this week, all the scripts went by, I taught all of my six classes and I have to say it was one of the most beautiful weeks of my life - I do not even think it's just the beginning!

In the middle of the attention

It never occurred to me that I would ever be a teacher, and neither that I would enjoy this much! I do not know if every teacher feels like me, but for me this work is a fantastic feeling and a blessing. The strangest thing is that doing a speech/presentation front of crowd is never belonged to my favorite things, but here I have to do this every day for several hours. Even I am surprised at how naturally it works and it absolutely does not bother me that hundreds of eyes are nailed to me every single day.

The way of knowing myself

This work is not only a fantastic promoting in my career but a great opportunity to discover my hidden abilities and learn a lot about myself. In the previous post I have already talked about writing a schedule for each class, due that I like to keep interesting lessons for my students. Well, this is nice and good, but I did not expect that in the new building it would be a blackout for almost every half an hour! In my life I never ever had to improvise this much, but fortunately I could successfully improvise. I realised that thanks to the hard work of the last few years, I have more knowledge than I thought so I can bring so many interesting things to my own students - I know it sounds funny, but l have to admit it is even strange for me too what wisdoms leave my mouth!

The smiling sexy teacher?!

Some other teacher were trying to scare me on the trainings that students would not go to the classes or, if they were going to go, they would dump me, they would make a joke, etc., etc... I was hoping (but in the end I knew) that this is not going to happen in my lessons. To listen and enjoy the lesson, in my opinion, it only depends on the teacher's personality. It may be maths or, in this case, the psychology of colours, but if the person gives them interesting and humorous class, students will enjoy it!

Well, I am a very positive and energetic person, I love all aspects of design - and perhaps all of these things are the key to maintaining students focus. From the first minute, they watched me with eyeballs and asked questions about the topics. This was enough proof for me that they are really interested in what I'm talking about. Here I would remind you that in every classes there are overwhelming majority of the girls, but of course I will not lie - I got the boys' attention all the time - sometimes I could laugh because they are so embarrassed!

Like all teachers, of course I've got my favorite class as well: Graphic design students are the cornerstones of my heart - but maybe because they also look at me like their favorite teacher. The other day they said they love me the best, because I'm so kind and humorous, and I'm always talking about interesting things. Ooooh, I do not have to say how flattered I am! Of course, in the depths of my heart, I wanted to achieve this, as I have written before - I would like to represent a status where goodwill and cheerfulness are accompanied by attention and respect. Probably also contributes to their deserved love that I am very direct, as there is only 5 years of age difference between me and most of the students. But I'm taking care not to let them go too far: Regardless of the fact that I'm kind with them, I would like to give them the proper look and I don’t let them talk to me in parallel. At first, they were surprised when I spoke loud after several calls, but after they knew where they were.

It was also very heartwarming when not only the students but the other teachers praised my English accent - they say that I have a British one and they would not even think I was Hungarian. As I mentioned in previous posts, besides design teaching, I also need to teach Technical English to the second-year students. Perhaps this required the hardest preparation in the beginning, as there are separate trainings for language teaching and as we know, I do not have such a thing. Of course, besides the most important design-related terms, I also teach them important expressions for everyday life. I rely on my understanding and common sense in teaching this lesson and based on the feedback of the students so far, this system is very successful.

Please do not mislead anyone, I did not write these things from self-styling, but I would lie if I said I'm not proud. The other day I met with my bosses and they were also very pleased to tell me that I am the favorite of every student and they are very happy to have an international teacher with them! It is a wonderful feeling to be able to fill this post with the university professors, and it is even more encouraging to continue providing high quality education for them!

I never thought it would be so enjoyable to be a teacher, especially at a university. I did not have such ambitions for the future, but nowadays, I am increasingly considering the continuation of it in the longer term. We'll see what the future brings! Thank you very much for your attention, I will be back soon! :)