Damien at the Speed of Life

Teaching is a wonderful career choice if you value the intrinsic rewards it brings. I’ve always thrived on the energy of seeing a human advance in a subject or in relational-academic skills. This is what I think of as the “human-profit” margin. For example, one of my goals is always to see each kid improve her/his standardized test score over the preceding year. No monetary profit could give me the same sense of accomplishment as a teacher as seeing that happen in a student. There are many altruistic values of teaching that motivate and keep us on track in our job. These are five things I value above and beyond financial compensation that make me want to come to work as a teacher every day.

1. Kids are now what we once were and they will one day run society: This can be both exciting and daunting. Knowing one day the child I am teaching long division may one day perform open heart surgery on someone. On the other hand, they could become homeless and jobless if I don’t do my part to give them the skills and motivation to succeed.
2. Many times you as the teacher are the only role model of a normal life: Ihad a parent conference a few years back where the parent had told me right there at the table that all 5 of her kids had different dads. That alone is staggering. I grew up in a house where my dad was always there fore me: tucking me in, coaching my soccer teams, teaching me guitar … I know not everyone has it that good but this was a lighter shade of pale. I felt sad for the confusion the child must live with each day. I couldn’t be that child’s dad (who wasn’t in the picture) but I started paying more attention to him and giving him the best advice I could during that year about life and academics. I hope I made a difference. Each day I have that opportunity as a teacher.
3. Students need a frame of reference to understand art: We forget sometimes how much kids do not know about the world. Most adults can tell you the difference between classical and pop music … most 4th graders can’t. Unless someone explains the difference between an 18 century painting an something modern my a cubist such as Picasso, or Andy Warhol for that matter … it’s all just blurs of sensation. A person may go their whole life and never appreciate art until someone like possibly a teacher tells them about it.
4. Students don’t always know how to be nice: We as adults get a million thoughts in our heads daily that are negative and self-defeating. If we are lucky (as I was lucky) we learn about positive self talk and talk with others. A person can go their whole life and never learn how to speak positively. I get to teach that every day (not always a walk in the park let me tell you).

Finally, kids need to learn respect for authority. A person can get to 15-18 or even 80 without that and suffer greatly because of it. As a teacher you are like a “soft” police officer, or judge. You represent authority and if you don’t teach then what respect is, chances are they will not have it when they are older. I like to think that every child who passes through my classroom in a given year knows how to respect her/his elders and her/his superiors. I know this will save them much trouble.

To close, these are 5 reasons I come to work each day. I haven’t been the best manager of my money and so my teacher salary is not like a lion’s share every month. I have a house payment, car payments, insurance, credit cards … when you whittle it down I probably have less expendable income each month than I had in my teens and twenties. The reason I don’t feel poor is partly because I do make a middle class-decent income by my standards and also because each day I get to act on altrustic values. They are what make me satisfied in my career.