Eleven years ago, I taught my first class in the studio I still teach in today. There were thirteen students, I think. I remember the number less clearly than I remember the sweat: by the end of the session I looked like I had walked straight out of a shower, fully dressed, and decided to give a lecture anyway. Nobody mentioned it. Designers are, it turns out, very polite about other people’s moisture. Since then, almost everything about how I teach has changed. Some lessons changed because they had to, as the tools moved, the industry moved, and students arrived knowing different things. Some changed simply because I got bored of them, and I’ve come to think that’s a legitimate reason. If the teacher is bored, the room knows before she does.
The lessons change. The reason I teach them hasn’t.
What I didn’t expect, that first sweaty evening, was how restful it would feel. Not easy, because teaching is never easy, but restful in the way that only doing something you love can be. You come out tired and somehow less tired than when you went in. That part has not changed in eleven years. Thirteen students or thirty, a new tool or an old one, it still feels like the most natural thing I do. I sweat less now. That is the only real improvement I can report with confidence.
Margin note: Think of the first time you did the work you do now. What has changed completely since then, and what hasn’t changed at all? The second list is usually shorter, and more important.
