How I Became a Teacher

The answer to the title of this blog is quite simple. How I got there is a little more complicated.

Next spring, the 2010 crop of high school seniors will graduate (barring any mistakes on their part, and I am watching). As educators, we want these students to have a plan — an exact detailed step-by-step plan of what they are going to do with their lives from this point forward.

From my experience, most 18-year-olds don’t think any further ahead than approximately four minutes into the future. (Of course, four minutes is an average. Boys would be less — much, much less. As someone who has a daughter, this is a bit frightening).

Teachers (as do I) are always asking students what they are going to do with their lives once they graduate: college, military or get a job. Three choices.

As educators, we seem to prefer they pick college. I assume that’s because college is the path we took. (I am also aware of what happens when you assume). We want them to choose from these three choices and stick with it — for the next 50 years.

I am not sure of the logic behind this because most of us had no idea what we wanted to do when we were 18 (17 in my case, which was way too young to be making any decisions not involving cheeseburgers, sports or a Def Leppard concert).

I often wonder if we have unrealistic expectations for graduating seniors. After all, most will change their minds in the first six months after they leave high school. Sometimes, I think they just give us the answer we want to hear regarding their future plans.

As I stumble through life, I think about this as I meet people. Did the guy at the gas station always have the dream to sell me Powerade and donuts? Is the lady at the dry cleaners living out her lifelong goal of ironing shirts for nine hours a day? How long has the UPS driver who delivers to my house wanted to drive a truck and wear an ugly brown uniform (although wearing shorts to work in the summer is a pretty nice benefit)?

I point out these examples not to take anything away from them. All of these people seem both happy and nice (goals that we should all have). They are everyday people who do everyday jobs. Obviously, by our way of thinking, they must not have had a specific plan when they were seniors in high school. And that’s OK. They are good people who have jobs. More importantly, they are good citizens who are making society better, not worse.

We all interact with people who probably aren’t pursuing their high school dream job. In fact, I am one of them. My plan wasn’t to be a school administrator who writes semi-coherent blogs. (Yes, I know you are shocked. Please take a moment a compose yourself.) My plan when I was a high school senior was … actually, I didn’t have a plan. But I told the people who asked that I did.

My goal, up to that point, was to play Major League Baseball. It turned out I wasn’t good enough. Who knew (other than the college and professional scouts)? That is how I ended up going to college and getting a business degree. Why college and a business degree? I have no idea.

Like most teenagers, I just picked something so adults would stop asking me. Plus, it was the mid '80s and Michael Douglas seemed really cool in the movie "Wall Street."

The good news: I graduated. The bad news: After four years of college, I was again getting asked what I wanted to do with my life.

I remember thinking that I just went through this whole pick-a-career thing a few years earlier. What a vicious circle.

So I took jobs in which I didn’t really have any interest (when I could find them). Then I woke up when I was 26 and got really lucky.

I knew how to throw a curveball (evidently, just not a good one). Actually, I had known how to throw a curveball since I was 12, but it took awhile for this skill to become useful. My curveball wasn’t good enough to get me into the majors, but it did get me a job as an assistant junior high baseball coach.

One of my old coaches needed help, and I knew how to throw a curveball. After a few practices, it didn’t take me long — if you count 26 years as not long.— to figure out that I liked kids, school, sports, coaches and summers off.

So I went back to college with an actual plan. When I told people what I wanted to do with my life, I actually meant it. That’s how I became a teacher, which has led to everything else.

I wish I could have told my high school teachers this story when I was a senior. My life plan is going to be based on the skills I learned in Little League — and that will eventually lead to me writing a blog about education.

From now on, I may just tell high school seniors that life has a funny way of just working out.

To read more blog entries by Michael Smith, visit his site PrincipalsPage.com.