For that, there is no thanks adequate to the measure of your contribution. From my own point of view, these TAS seminars have also been very significant in several ways. First and foremost, there is the very real pleasure of teaching a group so totally committed and involved as are the participants I've encountered in this program. Every TAS class I have taught has had a kind of electricity that sometimes gets lost in the university classroom where students taking four or five other classes are all too often submerged under work and life obligations that rob them focus and intellectual energy. In addition, it is always good for us as teachers to encounter different kinds and models of learners.
New situations call for new approaches and generate new ideas.
The TAS seminars have always produced different perspectives for me not only on how to teach but on the subjects I teach. Finally, I believe it is crucial for university teachers to remain in touch with what is happening in primary and secondary education. If we do not know what kinds of issues our colleagues in the schools are facing, we will not be ready to face the students of tomorrow. In conversations with my TAS scholars I realized again and again how different are the concerns of their students from those of a generation ago, and I realized how important it is to be able to anticipate what next year's freshmen will be thinking. In the humanities in particular it is important to see the kinds of texts and films high school students are capable of studying so that we can build in a continuous way on their educational experience.