I have not taught a class and I have not been taught how to teach. I am fortunate enough that as a graduate student, I have been funded through GRA positions through several different programs. However, I do want to go into academia and the longer I put off teaching, the more daunting it feels. I’m afraid of being out of touch and not remembering what it is like as a student leanring a subject. I’m afraid of teaching just to pay the bills and not out of passion, as I was taught. As a graduate student, I’m told that teaching is secondary to research and should not be the main focus of my efforts. But if I do not put in the time and effort to become a good teacher, how do I improve? Do I have to wait until I become a professor to have the time to become a better teacher? But even then, if I want to continue doing research, how I will get tenure is through my research, not my teaching. Unlike the small, liberal arts, teaching-focused university I attended as an undergraduate, research universities put their focus on the products of research, again leaving no time to better my teaching skills. Will I then have to wait until I get tenure? Or will I have to put research aside to focus on the teaching? Can I find this balance?

How do I develop a teaching voice? I can’t develop one through trial and error, there are students’ education on the line. When I tell people I study mathematics, they almost always tell me they dislike it and can trace it back to a teacher they had in middle school or a professor in college. I don’t want to leave such a neative impact on students. I can’t learn through theory. Students are individuals and will not fit into a theoretical mold. How do I have a teaching voice without having experience teaching and how do I take the time to appreciate teaching when time is stretched so thin?