"Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favor." -- Robert Frost
Throughout my college career, instructors and classmates have said to me, "You know, you'd make a great teacher." That's nice, I'd say, but I already have a plan, a nice, sensible plan: earn an associate's degree in accounting, marry my love of music to my skill with numbers and computers, and become the financial manager for a non-profit music arts organization. I outlined my plan in scholarship essays and folks gave me money to help me realize it. It was a good plan, a sensible plan, a righteous plan. I can't change now. It's too late, too late! It's too late…isn't it?
After three years of resistance, my passion for learning and literature and my experiences as a student finally defeated my sensible plan. I decided it was not too late. I would become a teacher – truth be told, I already was.
Outside the classroom, I wore teacher-ness on my sleeve. As a work-study student in the school cashier's office, I'd chat with the students about their classes while posting their tuition payments. They'd moan about the speech class they intended to put off as long as possible. I'd counter with tales of giving my instructional speech on Japanese style gift-wrapping – the women in the class produced beautifully wrapped gifts, but the men were all thumbs! "Gee, you make it sound cool. Have you ever thought about teaching?" Oh no, not me. I'm going to be an accountant.
The drive to learn more and share what I learned exposed me. After fulfilling the algebra requirement for my planned degree, I realized that I enjoyed algebra. So I took more math classes, just for the fun of it. I stayed up late, working additional problems, caught up in the thrill of understanding. I became an unofficial tutor, helping my classmates with factoring and linear equations. It was fun helping them learn, so I became a real math tutor and was recruited for the GED Prep Program on campus. Whipping around the room from one student to the next was exhilarating! "Have you ever thought of becoming a math teacher?" they asked. Oh no, not me. I'm going to be an accountant.
A cursory examination of my transcripts further exposed me. Sure, I took the requisite accounting and business classes, but for each accounting class, I took two or more English or literature classes. For every hour spent working problems in depreciation and cost-volume-profit analysis, I spent three, four, five hours writing essays and research papers. I loved it all: reading, writing, discussing. Especially discovering through writing what I thought, felt, and believed. Teachers praised my pointed summaries, commended my literary analyses, and delighted in the creative corollaries I drew between life and art. "Have you ever thought of becoming an English teacher?" they asked. Oh no, not me. I'm going to be an accountant.
Oh no, I'm going to be an English teacher. I'll get that accounting degree, but it's not too late to change. I may have to stay at ACC for another semester to take the core classes I need to transfer, but somehow I don't see this as a hardship. Already a 45-year-old "non-traditional" student, I may be a bit older than many of my classmates, but I've awakened from my "stupor of thought." I'm going to be a teacher, and it's not too late. Actually, it's just in time.