Okay, some days are better than others. But every day, there are little triumphs. I help kids learn, and be, and get through their days, almost every day. I myself love to learn, whether it is in the ceramic studio, out with friends, watching The News Hour on PBS, reading Discover magazine, writing a poem or a standard three-paragraph essay. The feeling of understanding something about this wild world is a joy. When I give this to kids, though sharing my experiences and knowledge, I love my job!
The third and final reason I love teaching: it never ceases to bore me. I have been working one job or another since I was thirteen. Babysitting forty hours a week the summer I was thirteen, McDonald’s from fifteen to seventeen, cleaning wealthy people’s second or third unlived in homes on Ocean Drive, serving up food at drug rehab centers, selling handbags, pulling up weeds, delivering balloons, waiting high-end brunch in Stonington, Connecticut—if there’s a service job, I’ve done it.
When I was an undergrad, I remember having the conscious thought, “I am here because I want a job that’s not boring.” Every day, I arrive at work from Brooklyn and have no idea what may happen. I have never, since my first day teaching in January 1992, been bored at work. And in the hardest times of my life—a breakup, my brother’s death—being in school around kids has been my savior.
In conclusion (a necessary phrase in this standard essay), I love teaching middle school. It’s a great job because kids are hilarious, teaching something is a fabulous feeling, and being in school is never boring. I have not written this to recruit anyone into teaching, but rather as a way of sharing with those who are not in the classroom day after day. There are some joys for all of us in what we do; this is mine.
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