You Can't Fake Passion

I want to be careful with this one.

It is easy to write about teaching and end up writing about yourself. That is not what this is. This is about passion, and about why students pick up on it long before anyone says the word out loud.

So here is the honest part. Teaching fills my soul. Not the title, not the ratings at the end of the term. It is the moment something finally clicks for a student who had already decided they were bad at it. I would do that part for free, and some semesters it feels like I basically do.

Most of the content does not stick. I made my peace with that a long time ago. What sticks is how the room felt, and whether the person at the front actually cared. You can have clean slides and tidy objectives and still lose people, because none of that makes up for not caring. Students can tell. They always could.

Passion Is Not a Personality Trait

We treat passion like a temperament. Some people have it, some people do not, end of story.

I do not buy that.

Passion is not a mood you were born with. It is a pile of small decisions you make over and over:

• Answering the same question a fourth time, a different way, without the sigh.
• Moving a due date because a student is working three jobs and this was the week it all hit at once.
• Actually knowing something about your students' lives beyond their row in the gradebook.

That is not charisma. It is just care, on purpose, when it would be easier not to bother.

One student put it plainly:

“I work 3 jobs, and sometimes taking three classes the workload builds up, and some weeks are smoother than others. I greatly appreciate Professor Tillem being really flexible with my schedule. Thank you, Professor Tillem.”Student course reflection

That is not really about my teaching. That is someone telling me the flexibility mattered while they were underwater. I will take that over any evaluation score I have ever gotten.

Flexibility Is Passion in Disguise

Being rigid is the easy default. Passion is the harder version: you meet people where they actually are, without pretending the bar moved.

It is also why I care so much about how a class feels. Not easy. Safe. Safe enough to be wrong out loud, to ask the question you are fairly sure is a stupid one.

Every so often a note comes back that tells me it is working:

“He's truly my favorite professor at the university. His teaching style is clear, organized, and engaging, and he makes every lesson easy to follow. He creates a comfortable learning environment and explains the material in a way that actually sticks. I genuinely enjoy taking his classes, and he's as close to perfect as a professor can be.” Student course reflection

I have to be honest about that one, because it is a lot. I am not perfect, and I am suspicious of anyone who thinks they are. What I actually hear in it is not “perfect.” It is “clear,” “organized,” “comfortable,” and “it sticks.” Those are not personality traits. They are things you practice, and things I still get wrong plenty of weeks. On the days I am running on fumes, a note like that is a big part of what keeps me showing up.

Why UDL Made This Click

A lot of how I think about this comes from Universal Design for Learning. UDL is not a stack of accommodations you bolt on at the end. It starts from a simpler idea: variability is normal, not the exception.

Design for the edges and you end up serving everyone. Assume one path works for all of them and you quietly lose the people who just needed a different way in.

The line I am actually chasing every term showed up in one reflection:

“I loved learning about the diversity in UDL. My thoughts going into the course were vastly different than my understanding leaving the course.”Student course reflection

That is the whole job. Not that they liked me. That they walked out thinking differently than they walked in.

And when you genuinely love the material, students clock it:

“I really loved getting to learn about UDL, which is something I can tell Professor Tillem has a great passion for. He was extremely knowledgeable and helpful, always there to answer questions.”Student course reflection

I never announced my passion for UDL. She just felt it. That is the thing about passion. You cannot fake it into a room, and you cannot really hide it either.

What I Actually Want You to Take

If you teach anyone, a class, a team, a brand new hire, here is what I would say:

• Let people see that the material matters to you. Passion you keep to yourself does not do anything.
• Guard your flexibility. It is not going soft. It is proof that the person matters more than the policy.
• Assume your people are different from each other, and plan for it before anyone has to ask.

You do not have to be the smartest person in the room. You have to be in the room, paying attention.

I am not writing this to collect compliments. I am writing it because those notes remind me why I keep doing this. Teaching fills my soul, and passion turns out to be contagious, so it is worth protecting in whoever gets it next.

You cannot fake it. So do not try. Just care, and let people feel it.