What's Your Major Again?

"English"

"Oh, what are you going to do with that?"

"Teach."

*Awkward or weird sound usually accompanied by "Good for you." or "Why?"

And here I am to answer this very question. Why do I want to teach? I've actually spent a ridiculous amount of time thinking about this question. In all reality, what does Shakespeare, Robert Browning, Robert Frost, Brock Dethier or any other writer and their writings have to do with life or how you live it? In my countless hours of thinking over this, agonizing really, I have split it up into two simple answers.

The history books we read are just a script for tomorrow. No I didn't come up with that, it's from a song by Cary Judd. We have to learn from the past, and what other way is there to learn from the past other than reading about it? And not just history. Fiction often portrays things that have happened, just giving it a different face. That seems like a fairly trite answer; "I want student's to learn from the past." But that's a big reason why for me.

The bigger reason, the biggest reason to me to teach is to perpetuate understanding. More importantly, to perpetuate understanding of people; their customs and deep rooted beliefs. In a nut shell (because I could literally go on forever about this, and in effect have gone on forever about this in many a poor notebook) I want to teach how to look out of another persons eyes. If I could help just one person understand one other person, I think it would be worth it. I don't even know exactly why, but understanding generates compassion, and I think I hold compassion in the highest esteem.

This might seem like a visionary or unrealistic way of looking at it, but I often wonder why people don't take a short time to try to understand someone else. I'm as guilty of this as any other person, and I strongly believe that learning to read, and to read well will help in perpetuating understanding. If one of my students could read something, and understand not only the surface meaning, but perhaps the meaning behind it as well then I would feel like I had done a job worth doing.

Reading is only the half of it. We also have to be able to portray our own point of view in an effective way. This way the circle of understanding would be complete. Now I know this is fairly unrealistic, but in my head it makes sense. How many misunderstandings and misinterpretations could be avoided if more people knew how to effectively get their point across and have other people understand where they are coming from.

So I guess I want to teach to perpetuate understanding, and hopefully generate compassion.