Why Would Anyone Want To Be A Teacher?

Imagine waking up and not having the skills you learned in school.

• You pick up your phone, intending to read your e-mails. You can’t understand the words.

• You go to your job as an engineer. There’s a meeting today about the bridge you’ve been helping to design. You no longer understand what your colleagues are talking about, and you have nothing to contribute to the conversation.

• You go shopping but you can’t compare prices or estimate how much you’re spending.

• You have to order food for your restaurant, but you can’t figure out how much to order.

No matter where life takes us, we need the basic skills we learned and practiced in school. While reading, writing, and arithmetic are the most obvious skills we need on a daily basis, we also gained other kinds of basic knowledge. If we can understand the weather report, know how the government is structured, read music, have the vocabulary needed to communicate within our professions- that’s because our teachers gave us those tools.

It is our education that brings us choices. Doctor, production manager, florist, chef, police officer, archaeologist, graphic designer, news reporter? With a basic education, you can move ahead to specialize in any area you wish. As a teacher, you have the chance to give these choices to your students. It has been said that teaching is the profession that makes all the other professions. As a teacher, you give choices, chances, and futures to the hundreds that will come your way as students. Teachers impart the needed skills to become a doctor, production manager, florist, police officer, archaeologist, graphic designer, or news reporter, to name a few.

But we all took other gifts from our teachers.

I whole-heartedly and unapologetically believe in the American Dream. I nurse the idea of liberty and justice for all. I want as level a playing field as we can possibly build. I don’t think we’re there yet, but I think we can and should achieve it. Where did this start for me?

I was in elementary school, sitting in our weekly music class. Music was far from my favorite subject, and for sure I have no natural talent for singing. Every week we sat with our song books, and before we could request to sing our favorites, Mr. Axtel would introduce a new song. Before playing a note, he would tell us, to my mind, some long boring story about the song’s background. Then one day he told us a story from his childhood.

He was a boy traveling down South to visit relatives. They had gone shopping and he got thirsty. He saw a water fountain and stopped to take a drink. A police officer saw him and grabbed him by the back of the collar, lifting him off the ground, feet dangling, and started yelling in his face. This white boy had committed the crime of drinking from the colored water fountain, crossing a line that wasn't his to cross. Mr. Axtel went on to teach us about segregation. I was horrified at the injustice and the ridiculousness of separate restrooms, water fountains, schools, neighborhoods, and anything else. While I have no idea what song he was introducing, Mr. Axtel opened up a new horizon for me and colored my thinking forever. He taught me a lesson that I would pass on to hundreds of students he would never meet.

I’m certain that Mr. Axtel had no idea of his impact during that half-hour class. That’s the thing about teaching-we never know if what we say or do is going to matter past the next quiz or report card. As teachers, we should never assume that it’s “just today’s lesson.” For every writer, bridge designer, inventor, nutritionist, store owner, or fill-in-the blank any way you want, there was a teacher who lit the spark or imparted the skills that made their success, their contribution, possible.

Christa McAuliffe said, “I teach. I touch the future.” Just like Mr. Axtel.

Please leave a comment. Tell me about a teacher that influences your path, whether through a skill or an idea.

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