Why Teach?

1.15.11 By Stephen Yang

Nowadays, there’s enough national discourse about educational injustices to get depressed.  Yet, I think we have a better chance at closing the achievement gap if we have fun while doing it.

Sometime around mid-December I forgot why I decided to become an urban educator in the Boston Public Schools.  Everything that was wrong with urban education felt like my responsibility, and I began to think of my entire resident experience as an opportunity to right ancient and contemporary wrongs.  I became a thorough workaholic, living in constant fear that I was perpetuating gross social inequities that pervade communities of color.  I also became a judgmental person more concerned with the shortcomings of other educators than their strengths.

America seems to thrive on bad news because doomsday prophesies and end-of-our-prosperity-as-we-know-it fears seem to be the only triggers that elicit action.  Get an American riled up about a threat to his/her civil liberties, and you’re guaranteed a response.  Our national scrutiny of education and all things related (e.g. institutionalized racism, incarceration rates, generational poverty, etc…) is no exception to the way we conduct critical discourse, which can be at times overwhelming when you are on the front lines working with urban youth.

I spent my winter break in good company on a spectacular white sand beach in the Philippines.  And while wading across a sandbank during low tide I recounted my favorite experiences in the classroom thus far, my temperament during those times, and how my students responded.  My fondest memories were overwhelmingly positive; they were instances when my students and I loved learning together.

My first five months as a resident have taught me to be guarded against feelings of despair, isolation, fear, irrational urgency, and frustration.  Being aware of the reality of an urban landscape, the students I serve, and the social challenges they face is only part of what it means to be a teacher in Boston.  There are teachers in this district whose students achieve social mobility simply because they enjoy the nature of the work and have fun while doing it.  These people inspire me.  I want to teach because I love it.