WHY I TEACH                
                           

                                                                             Peter G. Beidler 
              Why do you teach? My friend asked the question when I told  him  that
        I didn't want to be  considered for an administrative  position. He was puz-
        zled  that  I did  not want  what was  obviously a "step up" toward what  all 
        Americans are taught to want when they grow up: money and power.

 5           Certainly I don't  teach because  teachingis easy for me. Teaehing is  the 
        most  difficult  of the various ways  I have attempted  to earn my  living:me-
       chanic, carpenter, writer. For me, teaching is a red-eye,  sweaty-palin, 
       sinking-stomach profession.Red-eye,because I never feel  ready to  teach no
       matter how late I stay up preparing.  Sweaty-palm, because I'm always   ner-
10   vous  before I  enter  the  classroom, sure  that I will  be  found  out  for  the 
       fool  that  I am.  Sinking-stomach,  because   I  leave the classroom  an hour 
       later convinced that I was even more boring than usual.

               Nor do I  teach  because I  think  I know  answers, or  because I  have 
       knowledge I  feel compelled  to  share. Sometimes I am amazed that my stu-
15   dents actually take notes on what I say in class !
              Why, then, do I teach?
              I  teach  because  I  like  the pace of the academic calendar. June,  July, 
      and August  offer an  opportunity for   reflection,  research,  and   writing. 

              I teach because teaching is a profession built on change. When the ma-
20   terial is the same, I change - and, more important, my students change.             
              I  teach  because I like  the freedom to make my own mistakes, to learn
      my  own  lessons,  to stimulate  myself  and  my students.  As a  teacher, I'm
      my   own  boss.  If I  want my  freshmen to  learn to write  by  creating  their 
      own  textbook, who is  to say  I can't?  Such courses  may  be  huge failures,
 25  but we can all learn from failures.                       

                                                
              I teach  because  I   like  to ask questions that students must struggle to
     answer.  The  world  is  full  of  right  answers  to bad  questions.While teach-
     ing, I sometimes find good questions.

              I  teach because I enjoy finding ways of getting myself and my students
30  out of the  ivory tower  and  into the  real  world. I once taught a course called    
    "Self-Reliance  in a  Technological  Society." My 15  students  read  Emerson,
    Thoreau, and Huxley. They kept diaries. They wrote term papers.

              But we also set up a corporation, borrowed  money,  purchased  a  run-
    down  house  and  practiced  self-reliance  by  renovating  it. At the end of the 
35 semester, we  sold  the  house, repaid  our  loan, paid  our taxes,and distribut-      
    ed the profits among the group.

              So  teaching  gives me pace, and variety, and challenge, and the  oppor-
     tunity to keep on learning.
              I have left out, however, the most important reasons why I teach.
40           One  is  Vicky.  My  first doctoral student, Vicky was an  energetic  stu-   
     dent  who  labored  at  her  dissertation  on a  little-known  l4th  century  poet.
     She   wrote  articles  and  sent  them  off  to  learned  journals.  She  did  it  all 
     her-self, with  an occasional nudge from me.But I was there when she finished 
     her dissertation, learned  that  her  articles  were  accepted, got  a job and won
45 a   fellowship to  Harvard  working on a  book  developing  ideas  she'd   first   
     had as my student.

            Another  reason  is  George,  who started as an engineering  student, then 
     switched  to English  because  he  decided  he  liked people better than things. 
           There  is  Jeanne,  who  left  college, but  was  brought back by her class-
50  mates  because  they wanted  her to see the end of the self-reliance house pro-     
     ject.  I  was there when she  came  back.  I was  there  when  she  told me that
     she  later  became  interested  in  the  urban  poor  and went on  to  become  a
     civil rights lawyer.

          There  is  Jacqui,  a  cleaning  woman who knows  more  by  intuition  than 
55  most  of  us  lear n by  analysis.  Jacqui  has  decided  to  finish  high  school 
      and go to college.
          These  are  the real  reasons  I teach,  these people who grow  and  change 
      in  front  of  me.  Being  a  teacher   is  being  present  at  the  creation,  when 
      the clay begins to breathe. 

60        A "promotion" out of teaching would give me  money  and  power. But  I
      have  money.  I  get  paid  to  do  what  I  enjoy: reading, talking with people, 
      and asking questions like, "What is the point of being rich?"
            And  I  have  power. I  have the power to nudge, to fan  sparks,  to  sug-
      gest books, to point out a pathway. What other power matters?

65        But  teaching  offers  saomething besides money and power: it offers love. 
      Not  only  the  love  of learning and  of books and ideas,but also the love that 
      a teacher  feels  for  that  rare  student  who  walks  into  a  teacher's  life  and 
      be-gins  to  breathe.  Perhaps love is the wrong word: magic might be  better.
         I  teach  because,  being  around ~eople  who  are  beginning  to  breathe,  I
70  occasionally find myself catching my breath with them.