I want to be a teacher, because teaching is always an ever-changing job. Even though my textbooks are the same, I always change my teaching methods, but more importantly, my students are always changing.
I want to be a teacher, because I like to make mistakes, learn lessons and inspire myself and my students' freedom. As a teacher, I am my own boss. Even if I ask freshmen to compile a textbook on how to write a composition, who dares to say no? Such a course may be a complete failure, but we can all learn something from it.
I want to be a teacher, because I like to ask questions that students have to think hard to answer. The world is full of right answers to lame and weird questions. In teaching, I sometimes deliberately avoid those orthodox questions.
I want to be a teacher, because I like learning. Indeed, the reason why I feel that my teaching career is quite energetic is because I have been insisting on learning. One of the most important discoveries in my career is that I am the best teacher, not because I know much, on the contrary, I love learning.
I want to be a teacher, because I think I can try to liberate myself and my students from the traditional closed study of the ivory tower and enter the real world outside. I once taught a course called "Self-survival in a high-tech society". 15 of my students have read Emerson, Thoreau and Housley. They insist on taking notes. They write term papers.
However, I also started a company and bought a cheap house with a bank loan, which was decorated by the students themselves. At the end of the semester, we bought a house, paid off the loan, paid income tax and paid a bonus.
Of course, this is by no means your ordinary English class. But fifteen future lawyers, accountants and businessmen suddenly found that they were looking at Thoreau's Walden from a brand-new perspective. They understand why he went to the forest, how he built his wooden house, and why he appreciated his experience so much that he wanted to make it public. They also understood why he finally left the forest. He has tasted Walden Lake. It's time to taste another drink.
I want to be a teacher, because teaching has given me many drinks to taste, many forests to go in and out, many good books to read, and many ivory-tower deep fields and real-world experiences to explore. Teaching has given me a step forward, a changeable life and challenges, and an opportunity to keep learning.
However, I forgot to mention the most important reason why I want to be a teacher.
My first doctoral student was named Vicky. She is a very capable young man. For a time, her application for a scholarship was frustrated by her failure to pass the literature class. But she studied hard and wrote a paper about a little-known14th century poet. She finally finished her paper and sent it to a famous magazine for publication. Apart from consulting me a few times occasionally, she almost did it all by herself. When she finished her thesis, passed the thesis defense, got a job, won a scholarship from Harvard University, and wrote a monograph, I was glad that as my student, she took root and sprouted.
My other student is called George. He is one of the cleverest students I have ever taught. He studied engineering at first, and then switched to English, because he finally realized that he was more interested in people than things. He studied at school until he got a master's degree. Now he teaches English in a high school.
There is also a student named Gina. She dropped out of school for a time, but some of her classmates let her come back because they wanted her to see the end of the self-realization project. She's back. She is still my student. As her teacher, she told me that she was very interested in the situation of the poor in the suburbs, and she devoted herself to this topic and became a human rights lawyer.
Another student is called Jessica. She is a very neat person, with a learning talent that most people who are afraid of studying analytical science can't reach. Jessica decided to stop studying in high school and go straight to college.
These are the reasons why I want to be a teacher. These students are growing and changing before my eyes. Being a teacher is like creating life. I can see the clay figurine I gave birth to start breathing. Nothing is more exciting than seeing the breath of life at close range.
Without being a teacher, I may get status, money and power, but I have money. I get paid for what I like best: reading and studying, talking to people, and finding or asking such a question, "What is real wealth?"
I have rights, too. I have the right to attract others' attention, start interesting topics, ask difficult questions, praise a bold answer, condemn the cover-up, recommend books to students and point out the way forward. Do I care about any other power?
But being a teacher does provide something other than money and power: it provides "love". It is not only the love of learning, books and ideas, but also the love that a teacher can feel when those rare students step into a teacher's life and start breathing. Perhaps "love" is not enough here, and the word "magic" is more appropriate.
I became a teacher because I live among people who start breathing, and sometimes I can even feel my own breathing in their breathing.