Few things please me more than when I learn one of my students wants to be an English teacher. To hear that someone else has chosen my path—it's a selfish kind of joy.
Recently, one of my former students found me on Facebook. I taught Chris in my Gifted and Talented English 9 class, and he was one of the brightest young men I've ever had the privilege to teach. His understanding and excitement for Romeo and Juliet fueled my own enthusiasm, and later, Chris wrote me a letter of recommendation for a Folger Shakespeare workshop for teachers.
Now Chris is a freshman in college. From his profile, I learned that he was a biochemistry major. I wrote to him, "Biochem, eh? I guess I always secretly hoped you'd become a Shakespearean scholar."
He replied, "Yes, Biochem, sorry. I do love my literature, and I continue to read for pleasure, but my dream nowadays is to cure cancer."
Ah, crap. That's a good answer.
And why should I have aspirations for him to study literature? Graduates with degrees in the Humanities have difficulty finding careers in their field, and if they do, they're ill compensated for it. To wish him into Humanities is to wish him a life of struggle. Besides, isn't it more beneficial that this brilliant young man work to eradicate disease than study a 400-year-old text?
It is. I admit it. Maybe I want this brilliant mind on my team to validate what I do, what I've chosen. But instead, I'll support him, and we'll occasionally talk about literature, his hobby.
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