Why Good Teachers Make an Awful Audience

I almost titled this post Why Good Teachers Make Awful Students, but then I reconsidered. You see, I consider myself a good teacher (past tense now I guess), but to say that I am a bad student would be a gross representation. Most (not all) teachers are excellent students. They (we) learned early in our childhood that school was something that we knew how to do well in, liked to learn, and just had a thirst for knowledge. If you look at some of your best teachers, I'd put money on it that they were know-it-all kids. I compare my childhood self to Miss Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter series. Hand raised, waving wildly, slightly prim and proper...condescending (at least in my head if not out loud) to my peers who just didn't get it. I was/am good at school. I also suck at sitting in lecture. Teachers are horrible listeners. Oh..I don't mean that we won't listen to students, friends or even colleagues, because most excel at that too.  I mean that teachers are used to being the ones talking all day and when forced to sit and listen, like in an assembly, board meeting, staff meeting, etc. they are some of the worst "students" a speaker could wish to have. I noticed this the first year of my short teaching career.  During mandatory training for a curriculum (that we all disliked strongly and knew very well), we teachers would sit in the back row, write on one another's papers, pass notes, giggle and whisper non-stop. Throughout my years teaching, I would notice a majority of the staff members grading papers, playing on their phones, or texting inconspicuously (or so they thought). The fact of the matter was that we were busy people, and had mountains of things to grade, lessons to plan, and likely extracurricular school activities we were also in charge of-so sitting in a meeting where we were just going to be told about the changes coming that would effect us (usually decided upon by non-educators) while we had little say about the matters...well, just send it in a memo. It's really no wonder that I am similar to a young child with attention deficit while in my lecture class, wiggling in my seat, doodling in my notes, whispering to my newfound friends on either side of me, and keeping a running tally of everytime my instructor says "uh" ( which is a HUGE tally). I was taught how to speak in front of others and how to engage an audience, as were many other teachers. Perhaps that's why we are oh so much harder to engage.