Preface: A Change of Plans

RE-POST:

A funny thing happened while pursuing my dream of becoming a philosophy professor.

I hated, (this may even call for all caps) HATED my masters program. I won't name names but, it wasn't for me. I went to graduate school to become a professor so that I could teach philosophy but as I looked around and got to know my new peers and colleagues I seemed to be the only one...

Everyone else seemed to be under the impression that graduate school was a knock-down-drag-out fight to be the most philosophical and most impressive student/philosopher as soon as possible. I wasn't interested in playing games and as I made my way through the first semester I realized I wasn't being challenged in any kind of, personally meaningful, way anymore. It doesn't sound like the end of the world but I definitely felt adrift. I did only what I had to, to get by, and that was a big change from my undergraduate experience. The joy was gone.

I had moved all this way, leaving my friends, family and fiancé behind to pursue my all important dream and yet I never felt further from that dream than while in the very program that was supposed to get me there. I wasn't learning how to teach students about philosophy I was learning that without a passion for what I was doing anymore, what I was doing was just going through the motions. I realized this the hard way when I received my very first F. I had grown bored, restless and lazy. This failure, while incredibly embarrassing, woke me out of my fog of boredom and I realized some things about myself. It felt selfish to be, in a sense, confined to the ivory tower of academia while there were young, eager students struggling to even get to college. There was a disconnect between my reality and the real world. There was a space I wanted to fill; a higher purpose I wanted to fulfill.

I have a strong belief that much of this country's inequality stems from a limping public education system and I've always loved working with children. I felt that if I truly wanted to teach and there was a great need for good public school teachers then perhaps I should take Gandhi's advice and "be the change I want to see". I couldn't imagine a higher calling than teaching and inspiring young minds. At its core, this seemed the purest philosophy I had yet thought to pursue. So for maybe the third time in my entire life, I quit. It was a gut wrenching, emotional, but ultimately a freeing decision. I decided that my first priority would be to take some time off and think more carefully (this time) about my next educational venture and see what it would take to become a public school teacher.

Without my job with the university or any full time prospects locally, I decided to move back to Wisconsin. It was terrifying to return to Wisconsin after vowing just over a year earlier that it was time to move on. It was more terrifying to return unemployed without the experience or a degree to earn me the kind of grown up job I felt I needed at this point to validate my decision. I don't know how many jobs or types of jobs I applied for. I lost count and at some point stopped caring what it was as long as I could find a job to sustain me until I could get back in school.

And then something I can only describe as 'miraculous' happened. I was offered a teaching job. A teaching job with at risk high school students. And this is where I started learning in earnest,

How to become a teacher...