Lessons I Learned Teaching in My 20s

I want to be sensitive

sensitive

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sensitive 〰️

The worst and best moments for me in teaching usually happen during finals week, when students pass by my office to check their final grades. In those moments, I’m exposed to people’s best, worst, and most honest selves.

Side note: I also remember how vulnerable I used to feel reviewing my grades when I was a student. Now, as an adult, I don’t fully understand why I cared so much—why those grades, and the moments leading up to seeing them, held so much power over me. Why sitting in a professor’s office felt like facing judgment. Why I craved the validation so desperately, yet silently.

There’s one student I’ve taught many times throughout her university journey. She was one of the most dedicated people I’ve ever met—perfect attendance, literally never missed a lecture, and always gave everything she had. She poured herself into assignments and projects but never performed well on exams. Her exam results always dragged her overall grade down, and it genuinely broke my heart every time because I knew how hard she worked.

During her last course with me—right before graduation—we sat together to review her grades, and for the first time, she had done well on her exams. She ended up earning an A on that course. I was so proud of her, and so grateful that this was how our academic journey together ended. In the middle of reviewing her grade, she started crying. I asked her if they were tears of joy, and she nodded, reassured me that they were.

How rare is it to see someone cry tears of joy?
How lucky am I to be part of that moment?
In a world where I’m constantly surrounded by heartbreak and pain, it felt sacred to witness something like that.

Her friend, who was with her, laughed and told me she always cries and that they always joke about it. 

 I told her, “It’s beautiful to be sensitive—especially now, in a world where so many people aren’t.” And I meant it. To be sensitive is to grant yourself the privilege of feeling the full range of emotions. To be sensitive is to be brave.

Her friend responded, “Yeah, but my mom always told me that sensitivity makes you kind and kind people are the ones who get hurt and taken advantage of. I need to be tough. I can’t be reckless with kindness.”

I understand her mother. That urge to protect your loved ones can twist things until “reckless” and “kindness” exist in the same sentence. I know that type of protection well. I’ve lived in it—shielding my heart by refusing to feel. I’ve been doing it for years.

But in that moment, seeing the contrast between someone crying tears of joy and someone standing tall, guarded, I realized: I’d rather be sensitive.

Regardless of the price.

I’d rather be recklessly kind.
I’d rather be expressive with my love, fear, and sadness.
I’d rather not sacrifice all emotions to avoid one.
I’ve been hurt, and I’ve survived it.

This whole exchange inspired me to take more emotional risks, to be more vulnerable.

I’ve trained myself not to feel, not to get invested, not to show my cards—because someone once took advantage of that. But in doing so, I’ve lost all color in my emotions. 

The days have become gray and monotone. My life has felt scripted, disconnected from feeling.

When I was a little girl, the biggest part of me was my imagination. It was so big, it didn’t fit in my small body. It exploded out of me everywhere I went—uncontainable. Along with it came wild laughter, happiness, delusional optimism. I could turn anything into a story. I granted myself the permission to have grand expectations and dream big.  No matter what happened, I always found my way to better things. The butterflies in my eyes never left me. I saw life in full color.

Today, when I search for that version of me—the one with the limitless imagination—I can barely find her. Between the hours of work, the meetings, the deadlines, and the rules I’ve made for myself, she’s a ghost. And when I do feel her stir, I swat her away so fast, you’d think I imagined her—because I’m afraid to feel again.

But this moment with my student felt like a revelation:
I miss that little girl.
I want her back.

Even if it means risking my heart.
Even if vulnerability comes with pain.
I want her bravery, her certainty that everything will work out. That nothing is off-limits. That dreams are possible.

I want to live life free-falling into my feelings, indulging in them all. 

I don’t want to hold back or dip my toe; I want to dive heart first. 

We’re always evolving and growing, often wishing we could go back in time to stop ourselves from making certain choices, to teach ourselves the lessons we only learned the hard way.

But maybe, sometimes, we need to go back to learn from our younger selves.
Maybe the best way forward… is the way back.