Kudos to those members in this profession. It is generally an over worked and under paid career whose rewards are often not seen for years. I taught classroom high school for 10 years and college for two. I never worked so hard at a job in my life (well, except maybe now when I'm my own task master).
I remember when I left teaching and took a job in the defense industry and my new boss asked me after a month or so "What's it like now that you're doing a 'real' job." Without hesitation I replied "I'm working 1/2rd the hours for three times the pay... this is like a vacation." His jaw dropped!
The future of our country rests on your shoulders. I wish more people understood that and valued good teachers as they should be.
As for the rewards, I stopped teaching high school back in 1979. To this day I get frequent e-mails and have "get togethers" with my students from that era that compliment me on my teaching and the experience they had in school. Perhaps one of my favorite compliments came from a troublemaker I frequently bumped heads with as a student. He was not invited back and as he walked down the pier to catch the boat, he said "You know Mr. Bushing, I hate you... but I was never bored in your classroom." Decades later he e-mailed me from his sailboat in the South Pacific to say how fondly he remembered my classes and how sorry he was that he didn't take fuller advantage of the education.
Edited by drbill, 24 August 2010 - 08:48 AM.
