WOULD YOU DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN?
An interesting subject came up at my lunch table on Friday prompted by a discussion about college majors. I shared that my son, a freshman in college, decided to major in Spanish.
"Is he going to teach?" was the obvious inquiry.
"I don't know," I said, "but he has a passion for the language and it's a versatile major. If he decided to teach, great. But what's cool about Spanish, in contrast to my subject, is that he has opportunities beyond the classroom. For a high school English teacher . . . well, not so much."
The teachers at my table - English and math teachers - thought about this. If we could do it all over again, would we pursue a different path? The consensus was: no. We shared how we ended up in education. I knew since fifth grade that I wanted to be a teacher. But some of my colleagues ended in education after changes in geography, which resulted in a different career path, and changes in vocation later in life. Cool.
Was I surprised that we all pretty much agreed we would do it all over again? Absolutely. Teaching today is drastically different from teaching ten years ago, and I have been teaching for 25 years. In the beginning of my career, my job was to create engaging lesson plans, teach my students how to
write, and engage them in literature. Character development occurred, and continually occurs, by reading. Now our roles reach beyond anyone's imagination.
But would we do it all over again?
I cannot picture myself in an office setting of any type. It's that plain and simple.
As I proofread my son's essay for his college writing class, I saw my younger self. In college. Loving to write. Loving to read. Loving the newness of the students in my classes. And I read my son writing about how he felt changed by a required text in his class: Educated by Tara Westover. He saw, probably for the first time, a person who transformed her own life through education; from what I gather from the synopsis, Tara comes from abject poverty and was never enrolled in school. Today she is a Harvard graduate.
So there you have it: reading opened up my son's eyes to a world beyond his own. Very different from his own.
Maybe that's why I would do it all over again? Because I know the transcendent power that a good book and a good teacher can have on a kid.
"Is he going to teach?" was the obvious inquiry.
"I don't know," I said, "but he has a passion for the language and it's a versatile major. If he decided to teach, great. But what's cool about Spanish, in contrast to my subject, is that he has opportunities beyond the classroom. For a high school English teacher . . . well, not so much."
The teachers at my table - English and math teachers - thought about this. If we could do it all over again, would we pursue a different path? The consensus was: no. We shared how we ended up in education. I knew since fifth grade that I wanted to be a teacher. But some of my colleagues ended in education after changes in geography, which resulted in a different career path, and changes in vocation later in life. Cool.
Was I surprised that we all pretty much agreed we would do it all over again? Absolutely. Teaching today is drastically different from teaching ten years ago, and I have been teaching for 25 years. In the beginning of my career, my job was to create engaging lesson plans, teach my students how to
write, and engage them in literature. Character development occurred, and continually occurs, by reading. Now our roles reach beyond anyone's imagination.
But would we do it all over again?
I cannot picture myself in an office setting of any type. It's that plain and simple.
As I proofread my son's essay for his college writing class, I saw my younger self. In college. Loving to write. Loving to read. Loving the newness of the students in my classes. And I read my son writing about how he felt changed by a required text in his class: Educated by Tara Westover. He saw, probably for the first time, a person who transformed her own life through education; from what I gather from the synopsis, Tara comes from abject poverty and was never enrolled in school. Today she is a Harvard graduate.
So there you have it: reading opened up my son's eyes to a world beyond his own. Very different from his own.
Maybe that's why I would do it all over again? Because I know the transcendent power that a good book and a good teacher can have on a kid.
Comments
When we were in 3rd grade 😂😂