I should be sleeping at 2:00 a.m. on the night before classes start, but I’m not. I’m thinking about what I’m doing. About what we’re doing at Tapestry. About why I’m doing it and why we’re doing it. Certainly it has some feeling of trying to save the world. Or some kids in Buffalo, anyway. For whatever reason, I’m drawn to that type of work. And I wasn’t doing it at Colgate. Striving to serve the best served didn’t serve me very well.
I’ve been lucky in that I’ve twice had jobs that I loved — as a teacher at Norwich High School and as a graduate student (and instructor and researcher) in Michigan State University’s College of Education. I left the first job because I could find something more fun and more important (and because even though I loved it, there were problems that I truly drove crazy and I thought I might be able to help fix those problems). I left the second because I graduated and they wouldn’t let me stay.
Both of those jobs I loved had a few commonalities. Teaching and learning to central to both and so was saving the world. I am trying to save the world, but why? Partly it’s because I think and hope I have skills and knowledge that can be useful in the task. Perhaps more than any of that though, I’m trying to save myself.
While having had good jobs was a blessing, it was also a curse. I know good, rewarding, fun jobs are out there and I can’t settle for a job doing some variant of the wrong thing. Part of what (for me) has made a job fun has been a focus on the public good; on making the world a better place.
So, I’m a goody-goody.
Nah, at least not through and through.
I’m looking to save myself. I’m at my best personally and professionally when the center of the work is helping others understand important ideas in ways that inform their our action. That also creates the environment in which I learn best. If I’m doing reasonably well at the task, the energy from my students energizes me. More importantly, students teach me about the world.
Another part of a good job is working with fun and smart people. It looks like I’m doing that too. As things look right now, I’m about to engage in this venture with some very impressive colleagues — we’re committed to doing good work and I think we each hold visions of what might be that resonate with one another. I think that we will make a difference. It looks as though those who got it off the ground already have. An added bonus is that I’m married to one of these wonderful folks. What fun. Life looks good.
G’night.
Don
