By Dr. Lydia Reeves Timmins, University of Delaware

I can. I do. And I teach.

The implication of the title statement is that if you have skills, of course you use them in the professional world. Before I entered academia, I must admit I thought that people only became teachers because they couldn’t do whatever it was they were teaching. I thought (in the news biz) that all those profs just couldn’t cut it in TV; that they were unwilling to work hard, just wanted an easy schedule, or only cared about theories and all the crap that doesn’t matter in the trenches.

Many of you reading this might think along those lines. Perhaps you remember a professor who was all talk, but no experience. A professor who talked in lofty terms about writing under pressure, but had never slammed out a breaking news story in under a minute. But those professors may have had skills you didn’t recognize.

I think we all agree that education is the key to success. Much time, effort and words are spent covering and discussing education’s place in society. Teaching is not an easy job. (OK, the work schedule is pretty sweet.) But teaching carries with it a pretty awesome responsibility. From the elementary years of reading and writing through to the development of critical thinking in high school and college, teaching requires a lot of planning, knowledge and skill. A lot of doing.

Just because you can write a news story on deadline doesn’t mean you can effectively TEACH someone else how to do it. Teaching is more than just telling the facts. It’s reading the students, figuring out who understands you and who needs more examples. Teaching is understanding the subject well enough to explain it completely. Teaching is the skill of correcting a student thoughtfully and offering feedback that will help the person understand the material. Teaching leads to comprehension and the ability to think about the material critically.

I’m proud of the work I did for more than two decades in a TV newsroom. And I’m equally as proud of the work of my last 2 years: teaching.

I can. I do. I teach.