To Teach, Perchance to Dream

Teacher Ken has an incredible post up on what it means to teach. Read it. A highlight:

To be a teacher means to be consumed -- with the care of one’s students, with a passion for one’s subject, with not wanting to ever miss a chance to make a difference. It is to go out on a wire without a net, because one never knows what actions one takes or words one says will make a difference, and whether that difference will be positive or negative. Sometimes it can mean pouring oneself out without being as fortunate as I have often been to get feedback from parents and students that encourages me to go on, even when exhausted, and worrying about my failure in reaching some students. It means that one’s family will have to accept the limitations -- in time and money -- the choice of being a teacher will impose on them. It means recognizing that one’s own learning -- of students, of material, of how to help the students connect with the material-- is a never-ending process. It means one has to constantly operate on several levels simultaneously, observing things -- about oneself, about the students and the class -- about which one can do nothing at the moment but which will have to be processed and addressed at some point.

Really makes me think. As it should, I suppose.