This essay is everything to me! I'm staring down a career change, and it seems so overwhelming. The thing that keeps me on this path is, truly, my passion for it. I was one of the kids always told that I'd be a great teacher. I wanted to be a teacher when I went to college, but went a different route due to parental advice. Now, years later, I found myself still thinking about teaching. I'm equally excited and daunted at the road ahead of me, but this essay made me feel a little more excited, haha!
So happy to hear it! It's not an easy road, and there will be as many tears as laughs, but it's the only path I can imagine myself on. As things go on, please don't hesitate to reach out if things get tough or weird or frustrating, and you just need to hear someone tell you it's all going to be okay. It will be.
One thing this made me think about is how teaching is one of the few jobs where things going slightly wrong can still become part of the work. I’m an experienced teacher and I still make mistakes, lessons don’t always go to plan, and explanations don’t always land first time. But I’m still amazed by how often good learning comes from struggling through something alongside the students, despite your best intentions. I’m not sure you can say that about many other careers.
Yes! I especially love writing with them and showing my thought process, my mistakes, my wonderings. The classroom is a like live performance that can change on a moments notice. I love that about it!
I love/hate when my kids catch a mistake on a problem we're doing together - it shows me they're following along and understand it. And I love it more when they try to correct me with a wrong assumption, and I both discover and get a chance to correct that misconception.
I always tell my students that I wish they would edit their own work as carefully as they edit mine. For some reason they know how to use a comma very well when it comes to telling me when I need one in a sentence:)
I love struggling with my students - as we all try to piece together a larger problem, or all crowd on the elevator to check to see the changes in their weight on the force plate. There's so much good that can come from students seeing teachers want to learn as well.
I always tell my students they shouldn’t mess with me because I decided that I want to wake up every day and come to high school for the rest of my life. That’s the kind of crazy you don’t want to mess with haha!
I just began my master’s degree in education and we discussed this essay in one of my classes. Your words spoke to every teacher in the room. Thank you for writing!
I really love how you described this job. I am currently at English Philology with Teaching Specialisation (Master's) and on one of the subjects (Pedagogics) we talked about that when teaching not all the outcomes will be visible right away (especially when it comes to teaching values, moral rules and so on). You earned yourself a subscriber❤️ Hope to find more Substack posts about how to teach like this one
Tomorrow is the first day of school where I teach, I have been sitting in front of my laptop for a few hours already with the intention of creating a PowerPoint presentation, but for some reason I just couldn’t find the motivation to start. Then, I decided to open this app and I came across this majestic piece, and somehow somewhere along the lines, I found myself again. Thanks for this wonderful piece! This helped me in ways I didn’t know I needed. 💗
I liked it a lot. Just a comment for your point that teaching should be your first choice: i became a teacher after several years in science (post-docs) and I think it made me approach teaching differently from the „career“-teachers. Many of whom only ever knew school, some Uni and then back to school. They lack the perspective of competition and collaboration at work. I have very little abstract knowledge in pedagogy, i make it up as I feel, but i always take my students serious. As people who can make their own choices and who deserve to be taken serious. Many of my colleagues „guide“ them. Anyway, it want to stress that there are many ways to become a good teacher, sometimes not the direct route.
I apologize if I gave that impression - teaching was somewhere in my plan, but wasn't the first thing I did. I got at this later in another piece, and I 100% agree with you - people coming into teaching laterally, with life experience, are often amazing.
Beautiful post. I’m a teacher, and recently added a masters in school counseling. Next year, I’ll be in a role that combines both. At the same time, I’ve created a substack newsletter on the side (Wine Notes) that I wonder how I’ll sustain next year when I try to balance all of it; I’m grateful for what you shared about taking care of ourselves (making the job fit us) so we can keep showing up for our students. Please keep writing!
Nailed it. So many layers. I just read your article aloud to my fellow-30-year-educator husband and we paused nearly every sentence connecting to moments across our careers - until he’d say, “ok- keep reading!” Thank you for so beautifully capturing the lived experience of becoming a teacher.
thanks for sharing that. I'm glad it connected. I just felt that after seeing us all get beaten up so much, honestly, by all sides, I wanted to give a full-throated defense of why you should do this job.
Had my father not said, “You can do better than that,” when I said I wanted to teach English as a 17 year old heading off to college, I would not, 40 years later, still dream about teaching. I am taking steps to do it now as I wind down a career as a lawyer — pay I still need to get kids through college. But I plan to make it my second career. For many of the reasons you describe. And I will now be following you!
Any other adjunct professors out there?
Have a read. Comments appreciated. Subscribed to my Substack. https://drt01.substack.com/p/unsung-perhaps-unimportant-never
Hey Matt, my teaching course starts next week!
https://substack.com/@johnnogowski2/note/c-312279235?r=7pf7u&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
I love my job in academia, love teaching, but... I really enjoy summer break :) Thanks for a good read.
This essay is everything to me! I'm staring down a career change, and it seems so overwhelming. The thing that keeps me on this path is, truly, my passion for it. I was one of the kids always told that I'd be a great teacher. I wanted to be a teacher when I went to college, but went a different route due to parental advice. Now, years later, I found myself still thinking about teaching. I'm equally excited and daunted at the road ahead of me, but this essay made me feel a little more excited, haha!
So happy to hear it! It's not an easy road, and there will be as many tears as laughs, but it's the only path I can imagine myself on. As things go on, please don't hesitate to reach out if things get tough or weird or frustrating, and you just need to hear someone tell you it's all going to be okay. It will be.
One thing this made me think about is how teaching is one of the few jobs where things going slightly wrong can still become part of the work. I’m an experienced teacher and I still make mistakes, lessons don’t always go to plan, and explanations don’t always land first time. But I’m still amazed by how often good learning comes from struggling through something alongside the students, despite your best intentions. I’m not sure you can say that about many other careers.
Yes! I especially love writing with them and showing my thought process, my mistakes, my wonderings. The classroom is a like live performance that can change on a moments notice. I love that about it!
I love/hate when my kids catch a mistake on a problem we're doing together - it shows me they're following along and understand it. And I love it more when they try to correct me with a wrong assumption, and I both discover and get a chance to correct that misconception.
I always tell my students that I wish they would edit their own work as carefully as they edit mine. For some reason they know how to use a comma very well when it comes to telling me when I need one in a sentence:)
I love struggling with my students - as we all try to piece together a larger problem, or all crowd on the elevator to check to see the changes in their weight on the force plate. There's so much good that can come from students seeing teachers want to learn as well.
I always tell my students they shouldn’t mess with me because I decided that I want to wake up every day and come to high school for the rest of my life. That’s the kind of crazy you don’t want to mess with haha!
I am stealing that right here, right now.
I just began my master’s degree in education and we discussed this essay in one of my classes. Your words spoke to every teacher in the room. Thank you for writing!
Wow! Thanks for letting me know about that - glad it made an impact.
I really love how you described this job. I am currently at English Philology with Teaching Specialisation (Master's) and on one of the subjects (Pedagogics) we talked about that when teaching not all the outcomes will be visible right away (especially when it comes to teaching values, moral rules and so on). You earned yourself a subscriber❤️ Hope to find more Substack posts about how to teach like this one
We plant seeds of the trees under whose shade we’ll never sit.
Tomorrow is the first day of school where I teach, I have been sitting in front of my laptop for a few hours already with the intention of creating a PowerPoint presentation, but for some reason I just couldn’t find the motivation to start. Then, I decided to open this app and I came across this majestic piece, and somehow somewhere along the lines, I found myself again. Thanks for this wonderful piece! This helped me in ways I didn’t know I needed. 💗
Wow. Don’t know what to say - thank you, and good luck. You got this!
I liked it a lot. Just a comment for your point that teaching should be your first choice: i became a teacher after several years in science (post-docs) and I think it made me approach teaching differently from the „career“-teachers. Many of whom only ever knew school, some Uni and then back to school. They lack the perspective of competition and collaboration at work. I have very little abstract knowledge in pedagogy, i make it up as I feel, but i always take my students serious. As people who can make their own choices and who deserve to be taken serious. Many of my colleagues „guide“ them. Anyway, it want to stress that there are many ways to become a good teacher, sometimes not the direct route.
I apologize if I gave that impression - teaching was somewhere in my plan, but wasn't the first thing I did. I got at this later in another piece, and I 100% agree with you - people coming into teaching laterally, with life experience, are often amazing.
One of the most interesting jobs on a daily basis. No two classes are the same. No day is the same. Everything is in flux and developing.
it keeps our brains young!
Beautiful post. I’m a teacher, and recently added a masters in school counseling. Next year, I’ll be in a role that combines both. At the same time, I’ve created a substack newsletter on the side (Wine Notes) that I wonder how I’ll sustain next year when I try to balance all of it; I’m grateful for what you shared about taking care of ourselves (making the job fit us) so we can keep showing up for our students. Please keep writing!
Balancing is the tough thing, and I am to keep writing. Congrats on the new position!
Nailed it. So many layers. I just read your article aloud to my fellow-30-year-educator husband and we paused nearly every sentence connecting to moments across our careers - until he’d say, “ok- keep reading!” Thank you for so beautifully capturing the lived experience of becoming a teacher.
thanks for sharing that. I'm glad it connected. I just felt that after seeing us all get beaten up so much, honestly, by all sides, I wanted to give a full-throated defense of why you should do this job.
I'm 49 and studying pedagogy.
Had my father not said, “You can do better than that,” when I said I wanted to teach English as a 17 year old heading off to college, I would not, 40 years later, still dream about teaching. I am taking steps to do it now as I wind down a career as a lawyer — pay I still need to get kids through college. But I plan to make it my second career. For many of the reasons you describe. And I will now be following you!
Thanks for the kind words (and the follow) - so glad this resonated with you and hope your path to the classroom is as smooth as it can be!