I have quite a bit of teaching experience. A couple of semesters of composition, a long period of literacy work, and a couple of years of teaching non-technical people computer programming basics. It's true that teaching gets easier with practise, but I am here to tell you that nothing, absolutely nothing, is as good at teaching you how to be a good teacher as being a student with teaching experience.
It's really simple. You get to see somebody else make all the mistakes. You get to compare their style to yours and notice things you never noticed before. Just like the realization when you first stand up in front of the classroom: Oh my god, the teacher really can see and hear everything that happens in here. But in reverse.
So I decided to start keeping track of some of the mistakes I see my teachers make, and some notes for myself on being a better teacher. Bear in mind, this is not a criticism of my professors. All my teachers are great, the state certainly doesn't pay them very well, they have to try to cram lots of material into the typical ten-week quarter system, and the outdated equipment and materials available are embarrassing when you consider that this is the world's fifth largest economy running this place. But they are mostly not teachers by vocation: most of my teachers are engineers or architects or construction managers or what have you, first and foremost, and they give up no small number of billable hours to come give us the latest, greatest, and most relevant information. So there's a lot they can learn about teaching.
