But Why?

The other day I (Jeff) was at the park with our daughter. As I was watching her play with a few of the other kids I was chatting with some of the parents that were doing the same. One of the parents I was with knew that teaching is a second career for me. They finally asked me that question "So why did you leaving business to teach?" Trying to not give him the cliche answer of "well summers off, great benefits, blah, blah, and blah" I answered him truthfully and said "I should have never gone into business in the first place"

The look on his face was sort of like the face on the student you just told they scored an "A" on their math test, pure amazement. Not only was he stunned but so was I. In the back of my head I always sort of thought this, but never really said it truthfully to anyone. So why now?

It's been a few weeks since being removed from the classroom for summer break and I am already starting to miss the daily interactions of daily class life. The daily preparation, the morning coffee during first and second period, the variety of different classes during the day, and of course the funny and amusing comments from the students. Now of course I get a lot of those comments from the same little girl I took to the park when this realization happened.

The truth is I think sometimes we take the teaching profession for granted as it truly is one of the best professions in the world. I could spend another 14 pages telling you why it's the greatest profession but then you would probably stop reading this and think oh boy I am never reading that site again. So I won't do that.

So just ask yourself the same question about why you choose the teaching profession and feel free to share them.