I had no intention of being an English teacher when I went to college, while I was in college, or as I was graduating college. After graduating college with an English degree, I became a baker at a small French bakery. It was grand. Some of my fondest memories are connected with bread and the bakery. After several years as a baker and bakery manager, I was driving to work at 4 in the morning and came to a stop light. As I waited for the light to change, wondering why anyone stopped at a red light when no one but you was on the road, a thought struck me like a proverbial lightning bolt: You should do something in your field. Go get certified to teach. And that afternoon I found out what I needed to do in order to teach. A whim caused me to teach, the students keep me in the classroom.
One morning, as I drove to work I heard on NPR “Two Guys on Your Head.” They were discussing what makes people happy with their work. They told a story about JFK visiting NASA very early on. He came upon a janitor and asked him what he did at NASA. The janitor replied that he was helping to put men on the moon. The point of the anecdote is that people are happier when they are connected to something larger than themselves. Teaching is way larger than me.
Teachers get to work with some of the smartest people in the world: the students. They are so alive to everything. Everything is new. It is the first time they read Macbeth, the first time they run into Atticus Finch, their first encounter with the madness of The Wasteland. And it is so fun to watch and be a part of that experience. The students are so much smarter than we let them be on a day-to-day basis. They have such incredible ideas, and such open hearts. I remember watching an eighth grade class in a tough east Austin neighborhood become incensed at the treatment of Charlie Gordon in one moment, then brought almost to tears at the end of Flowers for Algernon when Charlie loses his intelligence.
Of course, teaching is not all flowers and unicorns; it is incredibly difficult and can be massively frustrating. You will read horrible writing, hear some of the worst interpretations of literature ever, and be dumbfounded by some of the things students will say to you and to their peers. Yet, I did it after 34 years. The difference between teaching and other jobs is that no matter how frustrating and beaten down you feel some days, or some years, the students make it worthwhile.
Several years ago, I was loading my car with groceries in the parking lot of the local grocery store. I heard some woman yelling, “Mr. Neal, Mr. Neal,” as she ran across the parking lot. My first thought was whose parent was ticked off at me now. I braced myself. But it wasn’t a parent. She was a student I had had in my second year of teaching. She was no longer a gawky seventh grader, but a 38 year old woman. I barely remembered who she was, but she went on for several minutes about how much my class meant to her and how when she saw me she had to tell me thanks. It was the high point for me of a very tough year. We do not know how we affect the students we have, but we do have an effect. Years after they have left your classroom.
I’ll end with an old joke: Doctors’ mistakes end in the graveyard; lawyers’ mistakes go to jail; teachers’ mistakes move in next door to you. Our clients, the wild mix of children who sit in your room, become part of the community, our friends and neighbors, the people we live with on a day-to-day basis. Teachers help create a better world.
