On Essays and Teaching

I never really realized just how passionate I am about essay writing until tonight. I mean, I've always liked writing them, and I've always received very high marks for them with very little effort, but I really got the chance to go over someone else's from a teacher's point of view tonight.

My cousin, now in her first year of university, asked me to review fer first classics essay. I proceeded to rip it to shreds (from the organizational aspect), write a little blurb about the importance of using an outline, add a brief explanation about each part of an essay and it's function, AND attach an old university essay of my own with explanations of the parts.

I tried to make it as easy to follow and non-condescending as I could. I really just want her to succeed because she's my cousin and I love her. But I wonder if I'm being too prideful by assuming that she needs to be "taught" about how to write an essay.

I've been a little hesitant about teaching (outside of school, that is) and offering advice ever since I had an incident a few years ago. After spending months learning about the wonders of life and enlightenment at the Buddhist temple in Korea, I wanted to share my new-found wealth of information. What followed could be considered an epic failure where the family member I tried to teach completely rejected me, saying "I like my blissful ignorance. Leave me alone."

Brokenhearted, I went back to the monk who taught me and explained what happened. I asked him why someone wouldn't accept the knowledge I was trying to give them. He replied that you can't just go and teach someone, because it's almost always prideful to assume that what you know, others want to know. It seems to others that you're flaunting your intelligence or smarts, which you may or may not actually be doing. You must simply live your life in the way that you learned. Others will see it working for you and ask to be taught. Then, can you effectively tell them what you know.

It kind of blew me away. Now, I try to wait until asked before going off on an educational lecture. But I still wonder: how much is too much? When should I turn off the "teacher" mode?

Either way, I hope that I can be a help to my cousin. I hope that it results in a good mark for her first essay and good essay-writing habits for the academic years to come.