Learning through teaching

Student affairs in an incredible field. There are so many opportunities available to try something new or to work on a passion and I feel very lucky to have learned in time that this can be a career. One of the opportunities I have been granted due to my assistantship is to help teach the RA class, a 4000 level psyc class taken by people who want to be considered for hire as resident assistants. I was lucky enough to teach this class twice as an undergraduate as well, making this experience familiar and also new.
One of the subjects breeched in this class is student development theory. Our class is on Tuesdays and Thursdays and we (Claiborne is the other grad student teaching with our lead instructor in this section) have been lucky enough to have theory days fall on Thursdays, the morning after we discuss theory at a higher level. It has been enlightening to see at what level students can absorb what information and even when we see something we say go straight over the heads of our 28 mostly freshmen students, it reinforces our understanding of what we have learned. I know that I will always remember Kohlberg a little better than I otherwise would have because of time spent on this theory in different environments. In a way, this situation could be viewed through the lens of some of our more recent theories, but I'll have to get back to you on that after we try and fail to have those make sense to our students...