Yes, I should've been a lawyer. I could have hung my shingle out in front of one of those cool little bungalows off of 1st or Congress, or maybe even one of those hilly neighborhoods between 6th and 12th streets downtown. I could've been a professional, dealing with adults on a daily basis, wowing judges and juries alike with my mental prowess and legal acumen. At the end of my lawyer-day, I'd come home to my lovely wife and recount the day's successes, relishing the victories to come based on the groundwork I'd laid that day; legal precedents discovered and such.
But, instead I am a teacher. I decided I would shape the lives of America's youth into the kind of person we all wanted to be. Of course they would lay before me, eager to be molded, offering their yet unformed personalities up to me as a pilgrim offers bread, willingly, no, literally begging me to impart what I had gleened from all my days on this rock.
The only truth is that I am a teacher. Nothing went as it should've. I wonder aloud at least once a week if I have any idea what I am doing, or if I should continue to do it even one more day. Of course every day I get suggestions from the kids, honest and forthright as they are: "Why do you keep talking to us," they say, or, and I do savor these moments more than I can communicate to them, "You're my favorite teacher, you make school fun." Some days the first kid's right, some days it's the second kid.
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