Why I Teach

Another school year has come and gone. My students have left for the summer, a little older and hopefully a little wiser. I have packed up my room, put away the books, and cleaned out my desk. Now in the quiet stillness of a late-June afternoon, I ask myself the same question I have always asked at this time every year: Why am I doing this? Why do I teach?

The answer is both simple and complex. I teach because I love working with kids and making a difference in their lives. It really is that simple. "Kids," as Art Linkletter famously said, "say the darndest things." They also do the darndest things, usually when you least expect it. They are the most unpredictable creatures on the planet. Yes, they can be goofy, silly, annoying, and frustrating - sometimes all at once. Yet, they can also be amazingly kind, generous, thoughtful, and creative. As teachers we learn to take the sugar with the salt.

One of the great joys for me as a teacher is when a former student comes back to visit me, sometimes years after he or she graduated. They return because they want me to know they are doing okay. Many times they were kids who could only be described as being "at risk." They barely passed, and in some cases they actually failed. But they come back to say, "Thanks for being there when I needed you. You made a difference."

More than once a student has dropped by my classroom years later to say that after taking my class she decided to become a teacher. That is perhaps the greatest reward of all. Knowing that you, in some small way, inspired another person to teach is one of the great intangible rewards of this profession.

But teaching is not only about the kids. It is also about the future. Christa McAuliffe, the teacher and astronaut, said it best. "I touch the future. I teach." Very few people can say such an audacious thing and know that it is true. Teaching is eternal, and knowledge lasts forever.

In this sense, I do not consider teaching to be a job as much as a vocation. I was called to be a teacher, and teaching is both what I am and what I do. And it is important work. In fact, I honestly believe that teaching is the last, best hope of humanity. And this is the complex part. The part that is difficult to explain without sounding pompous or overly dramatic.

I teach because I do not want the world to experience another Holocaust or another World War or another Hitler or Stalin or Mao.

I teach because I do not want today to be better than tomorrow but the other way around.

I teach because I believe that our time on this planet is short and we need to make the most of every day and every hour.

I teach because the opposite of knowledge is ignorance, and ignorance is a disease that few civilizations have been able to survive.

I teach because, as Winston Churchill said, "The empires of the future are the empires of the mind."

I teach because, "History," as H.G. Wells once wrote, "becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe."

I teach because our greatest natural resource is not oil or water or coal but, as Walt Disney reminded us, "Our greatest natural resource is the minds of our children."

I teach because I want to know that I am part of the solution and not part of the problem.

I teach because, as John Kennedy said, "Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education."

In the final analysis, I teach because I believe.

So, dear reader, why I teach has nothing to do with summers off or snow days or being done when the final bell rings at 2:10 pm. I seldom have summers off, and they get shorter every year. On snow days, I usually grade papers, and no teacher is done when the final bell rings.

And, oh yes, it's not about the money.