Do teachers make good students?

This has been sitting with me since I was at a presentation at #NCTMBoston. 

My mom was a nurse and she always said doctors and nurses make the worst patients.

I wonder if that is true about teachers - are they the worst students?

I felt like it at #NCTMBoston as I sat at my first presentation surrounded by a room full of people, big papers hanging around the room waiting to be written on, two presenters, and a powerpoint.  I had my laptop, my cellphone, and my old fashioned notebook.  I took notes as I tried to concentrate on what they were saying and showing in their powerpoint, speaking about a lot of great activities.  I didn't want to miss anything.  I was trying to take it all in. 

But, I was on twitter.  I was checking on #NCTMBoston to see what other people might be listening to - was I missing anything, was there a better presentation happening at the same time.  Switch to phone mode, snap a picture of the powerpoint slide for later, write it in my notes (look at photo).  Switch to twitter to tweet out a quote from the presenter.  Back to taking notes. Switch back to twitter to see that someone from #MTBoS was in the same room.  Look around to see if I could find her, I can't.

I am normally a focused person.  In high school, I was a focused learner although the only distraction we had back then was doodling in the notebook and we got in trouble for that.

I was so distracted at the presentations, trying to take it all in, process it, not miss anything in my room or in any of the other rooms at the conference.  It was a good energy though, but after a few presentations, it gets tiring. 

The other thing that happened was when I was sitting at one presentation that wasn't that interesting.  Guess what?  I can get up and leave.  I see that my friend has texted me that she is in a better one.  I can go to where she is.

What if our students could just leave during our lessons if they weren't interested.  Yes, I would be insulted. 

I don't know if all these happenings were making me a good student or a bad student but rather just a different student with all the technology and trying to use them as tools to my benefit.