Why I'm a Teacher: Part 2

It's not for the pay, obviously. We even got a pay cut last year.

It's also not for the vacation. I'm officially on vacation right now. Summer school ended on Friday and so yesterday was my first official day off. I don't like days off. In fact, I wish our 180 instructional day school year was more like 220. Working keeps me going. It keeps me going to bed and waking up at decent times. It keeps me feeling productive. Yesterday, for example, with my first 24 hours of freedom, I surfed the net, went to school to start cleaning up my classroom, read, ate a super burrito de asada, rode my bike around for an hour and a half, watched what must be one of the worst TV shows ever (anyone ever heard of "Extreme Akim"?), talked on the phone, and played online chess and Scrabble with Pam. So I did things, but I don't feel like I really did anything. I do need a vacation, but I don't have to like it.

It's not for the respect. Sure, everybody seems to identify with and like teachers. They have fond memories of their own teachers and so whenever I tell them I'm a public school teacher they smile and say that's cool and usually throw in something about how they could never be a teacher. But I think there's usually not a whole lot of respect there. A lot of people, much more than you'd guess, think we just work from 8:30 till 3:00, 9 months out of the year. I know you all know better than that!

Since I have a Stanford education and political aspirations, some folks seem perplexed that I would spend so much time trying to educate fifty "disadvantaged" fifth graders year after year.

I recently received an email from C. who is now 15. When I met him, he was 9 and a rather short, pleasantly plump 5th grader in my very first class. At that time his goal in life was to be a comedian. Now he's 15, a boxer and a baseball player, about to start his junior year in high school, and he wants to get an engineering degree and be a Navy Seal. He wrote me asking for my advice. I wrote him back and then he wrote this:

Hey Mr. Evans I'm glad you got my email I wasn't sure if it was old or not yours, I was actually hoping that you would do me the favor and give me the best advice that you could which I appreciate by the way; for some reason you have always been more than a teacher for me; you know how people say that you will probably forget most of your grade school teachers? well it's the complete opposite with you, I don't write to any other of my past teachers other than you, and Mr. Truong. I don't know why especially because it was your first year teaching when I was in your class so I think that says a lot about your abilities as a teacher. I think I just learned a lot more from you guys than I had from regular teachers just so you know teachers these days just aren't the same it's a problem a lot of teachers don't care much about a students success. so you guys had a lot to do with my decisions and choices in life that have led me to where I am today you have influenced me in all the positive ways so I would just like to thank you for that.

That's why I'm a teacher.