Inspiration

People often ask me why I wanted to leave my comfortable research job and become a teacher.

"Summer break," is usually my reply, but there really is more to it than that.

While I believe that teaching is a vocation that I have been called to do, I don't have a long history of wanting to do it. Even so, I have always loved to learn and immerse myself in academia, no matter what the discipline. I like the challenge that each day brings and enjoy that teaching is, ultimately, a very family-friendly profession. I consider myself to be every enthusiastic about science and like spreading that enthusiasm on to others that might not otherwise think twice about it ... But, underneath all of these reasons, there is one that keeps cropping up more and more in my mind.

My Uncle.

Today would be his birthday if he was still with us (he died last summer of cancer that spread from his prostate to just about every other area of his body).

Before the cancer took over, he was a teacher, through and through. A high school business and keyboarding teacher, to be exact ... Subjects in which he barely scraped by when he was a teenager (believe me, I've seen his report cards). From the stories he told and from the stories I've heard from his former students (my father, my best friend, my cousins, and my sister being some of them), he was not the type of teacher that was heavily focused on content, although it was important. He was the type of teacher that built solid relationships with his students and did the unexpected to keep them interested.

For example, in a business law class he "tripped" over a student's book bag (and, let me just point out, my uncle was a large man) and threw himself to the ground to show that lawsuits can crop up anywhere. He wrote reference letters for high school drop outs, kids that he believed had potential even if it wasn't academic. He was an inspiring individual and touched many lives ...
More and more, I see that I have a greater connection to teaching than I even realized.

When he died last summer, I was just finishing up my very first week with students. In my tizzy of being overwhelmed and nervous and scared that I made the wrong career decision, I never did call him to let him know how things were going. Looking back, I wish I would have picked up the phone that one last time. I wish I would have called and let him know how important his support and guidance were to me and how I hoped to be as successful as he had been over the years.

Only time will tell if I even begin to fill his teaching shoes.

I just hope that I can (and did) make him proud.