I’m at a workshop (Extending Teacher Creativity Workshop) for the next few days and will actually be doing a little song & dance about My Geek Odyssey and using comics in the classroom (notes and handouts will be made available by the end of the week). So I decided I would climb up on that old soapbox for a minute or so (until Hemi decides to waltz across the keyboard) about being a teacher.  Let me start off by saying I love my job, I really do enjoy what I do every day- not many people can say that.  Teaching to me has always been a calling.  When I first thought about it my dad (in a brief fit of fatherly advice) took me aside and said “As long as you are happy, that’s all that should matter.”  I think he was hoping it was a phase and that I would end up being what he wanted- a gazillionaire ex-fighter pilot/astronaut who could fix his computer from long distances.

While in college I had friends who thought that going into education was the stupidest thing anyone could do(“that’s nice, but what about making loads of money?”)… some of these friends are out of work right now, but they also are parents and contact me for advice about what they should do with their kid.  Kind of funny…  Of course I know if I want to stop all conversations at a dinner party all I have to do is tell people I’m a teacher and I get looks like like “Oh, I didn’t know they let THOSE kind of people in here.”  So I tend to keep quiet… but I’m thinking the next one I go to I’m going to say “I’m a cartoonist” and see what the reaction is- who knows? Maybe I’ll be the belle of the ball.