Teachable Moments…

          Teaching is a learning thing. It requires careful listening and interpreting as much as, if not more than lecturing and expounding. A teacher not only needs a base of knowledge but also a willingness to share, to take chances, and be challenged in order to meet the needs of any particular class.

          Part of the beauty of the evening schedule is the variety of persons and experience brought into the classroom. There is a fine mix of traditional aged and returning students fitting an education into their busy schedules. There is also a fine mix of seasoned professional educators along with new enthusiastic instructors.

          The people who teach on the evening schedule do so for a variety of reasons. Part of the reason is the money - it's a decent second job - teaching at the local community college. That's just one reason though. What we hear over and over is that instructors have the desire to give back, to keep in touch, and to remain intellectually alive by means of what some call "the noblest profession."

          In each issue of Stone Soup, this space will highlight one of the many adjunct faculty who grace our classrooms here at Schenectady County Community College.

When we called Dr. Alicen McGowan, hoping to get ideas of what to say about her, we joked about how tedious it would be to simply list degrees and facts. True to form, she, the consummate instructor, came through not only with a response but also with a method. "Perhaps you could call it 'teachable moments'" she said, "for it is in the moments that we are defined."

          "The most exciting moment for me, was when one of my former students won the Nobel Peace Prize."

Dr. McGowan has taught a variety of Psychology courses over the years. Back in the early eighties, she went to Northern Ireland to teach a series of seminars on the Psychology of Peace. One of her students was John Hume. As leader of the Social Democratic & Labor Party, he played a major role in the negotiations leading to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

          "If I did nothing else, but to touch him in some way that enabled him as a communicator of peace…". We think it was modesty that caused her to pause, and we took in the moment. In the silence, we considered the enormity of how we might touch any of our students, and how one moment might affect the future of that life or many other lives.

          Thanks, Alicen. Thank you for the moment you shared with us. And thanks for your years of dedication to teaching and touching the lives of students in a positive way.

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