Just Teach....?

Last week I had the opportunity to people watch while waiting for friends.  I overheard a conversation between two upcoming college graduates.  One asked the other what he was going to do when he graduated.  While this conversation doesn’t’ seem interesting to the average person, to me it was quite entertaining because he ran down all of his prospective opportunities first and then he said something that struck me as, well, odd.

He said, “If I’m not offered anything I like, I’ll just teach until I figure out what my next move will be.”

This was stunning to me as an educator because I was curious of what “just teaching” looked like.

I wanted to ask, but I thought that would be both odd and transparent at the same time.

One can’t just teach! Similar to other professions, there is a standard of excellence and that standard must be met in order to be considered a quality educator.

In essence, anyone can walk into a classroom and begin transferring information, but only a select few can command the attention of students, create connections, manage a classroom, engage parents, constantly interact with teammates, write lesson plans that hold students’ attention for more than five minutes, dry tears, encourage laughter, listen for meaningful conversations critical to learning, all while operating on a few hours of sleep and less than thirty minutes of lunch and down time.

In order to “just teach” you have to have the capacity to devoid yourself of concern for your students and empathy for your parents.

I wanted to jump in and suggest alternatives such as “try teaching” or “attempt to teach “instead of “just teach”.  However, no suggestion seemed quite right for this profession or his cavalier conversation.  Teaching is a calling, a profession that requires a bit more than want; it requires grit and staying power.  I’m sure he’ll learn that if he chooses teaching, but it’s my hope that he listens closely and if teaching doesn’t call, he shouldn’t answer.  You can   “just” when it comes to many things, but in my experience, you can’t “just teach”!