The Educational Marathon of a New Scholar

Abstract

When one runs a marathon he or she encounters a myriad of emotions ranging
from jubilation to desperation, anger to calmness, fear to confidence and courage to
regret. Each corner one curls over the pavement, each hill one's training shoes
surmount, and each breath one inhales battling a mental game of physical
exhaustion, releases the sensation of a new wave of emotion that one encounter's
in completing the physical challenge of running the distance of 42 continuous
kilometres. This is not unlike the emotional landscape one may encounter as a new
educator in the post-secondary climate in the new millennium. Each new
educational technology awaits to be implemented in a new course design; each new
student you encounter brings a varied educational history waiting to be decanted,
and each new colleague offers an opportunity for an exchange of pedagogical
interests that may promote a sense of being overwhelmed and excited, frightened,
yet competent, and eager, while timid.