Why Be A Teacher?
“I have to write 500 words on why I want to be a teacher. Any things I should say?”
I was asked this by my sister this afternoon. As well as being a crucial part of the first sentence above, the word ‘why’ also happens to be one that Beth hears a supernumerary amount of times a day from my toddler nephew. As infuriating as that can be, ‘Why?’ is a question I never want Finn to stop asking. And that’s why I’m a teacher.
As the students I’ve taught would no doubt tell you, I tend to go off on tangents. When Beth and I were teenagers, we wanted to call our band Ampersand. See? Tangents. If I were talking to an adult, I would have to assume that he or she knows what an ampersand is. And assume that they know why it’s called an ampersand. And assume they know why it looks like an ampersand. And generally, if I had been talking to an adult, even if he or she didn’t know one, some or all of those facts, it’s unlikely that he or she would ask. Because we live in a culture where adults would, generally, rather be ignorant than appear ignorant. Where they have stopped asking ‘why?’ And I hate it.
As my wife would testify, my sentences still often begin with the phrase ‘Do you know why...’ There are two versions of these sentences:
A.) the ones where I know the answer and desperately want to tell her, or
B.) the ones where I desperately want to know the answer and hope she can tell me.
Unfortunately, she seems to have worked out how to defuse these questions, by habitually using these ingenious responses:
A.) “Yes” or “I don’t care.”
B.) “No” or “I don’t care.”
And I am foiled. But one of the best things about teaching is that I get to tell people things without feeling like I’m pontificating or being condescending or - hopefully - anyone else feeling like I’m talking down to them. I get to answer questions from people who still care and still want to know ‘why?’ I want to be able to engage with a generation of adults who care ‘why’ or know ‘why’ or can tell me ‘why’, and I don’t think that’s going to happen unless we help create one.
So that’s why I’m a teacher.
Why do you think an ampersand is called an ampersand? And why do you think it looks like this: &?
There are no wrong answers. The question is why you think so. Brainstorm! Here’s some thinking music from Belle & Sebastian (yes, you probably see ampersands every day! They’re in Barnes & Noble, Ben & Jerry’s, Black & Decker, and that’s just some of the ‘B’s!)
So what did you come up with? Great! (The ‘real’ answers are possibly just as apocryphal.) Ampersands began back when there was no printing press, so everything was handwritten, mostly in Latin. The Latin word for ‘and’ is ‘et’, and it (like our ‘and’) had to be written a lot. So people got lazy, and along the way it evolved into something that was easier to write: ET Et et &. Which is ironic, since these days most of us find it almost impossible to handwrite an ampersand, but we do pretty well with ‘e’s and ‘t’s. And why ‘ampersand’? Well, there was a time when &s were just called ands, and were treated as letters of the alphabet. As such, they would be rote chanted by students learning that alphabet, which ended with X, Y, Z, &. Now imagine singing the end of alphabet song if that were the case. “Double-u, ex, wy, zed and and.” (Or, if you’re so inclined “double-u, ex, wy, zee and and.”) Kind of confusing. So in the hope of ameliorating the confusion, teachers got students to end their alphabet with “and per se: and.” Meaning “and by itself: and!” And, as anyone who has ever heard a child sing the alphabet knows, like the origin of the ‘&’ itself, the letters seem to slur into each other (to the point where it sounds like there’s a letter called ‘elemeno’ between ‘kay’ and ‘pee’.) And that’s how “and per se: and” became “ampersand”.
That tangent was to demonstrate how teachers and students can change the world.
& that’s why I’m a teacher.
**********
I was asked this by my sister this afternoon. As well as being a crucial part of the first sentence above, the word ‘why’ also happens to be one that Beth hears a supernumerary amount of times a day from my toddler nephew. As infuriating as that can be, ‘Why?’ is a question I never want Finn to stop asking. And that’s why I’m a teacher.
As the students I’ve taught would no doubt tell you, I tend to go off on tangents. When Beth and I were teenagers, we wanted to call our band Ampersand. See? Tangents. If I were talking to an adult, I would have to assume that he or she knows what an ampersand is. And assume that they know why it’s called an ampersand. And assume they know why it looks like an ampersand. And generally, if I had been talking to an adult, even if he or she didn’t know one, some or all of those facts, it’s unlikely that he or she would ask. Because we live in a culture where adults would, generally, rather be ignorant than appear ignorant. Where they have stopped asking ‘why?’ And I hate it.
As my wife would testify, my sentences still often begin with the phrase ‘Do you know why...’ There are two versions of these sentences:
A.) the ones where I know the answer and desperately want to tell her, or
B.) the ones where I desperately want to know the answer and hope she can tell me.
Unfortunately, she seems to have worked out how to defuse these questions, by habitually using these ingenious responses:
A.) “Yes” or “I don’t care.”
B.) “No” or “I don’t care.”
And I am foiled. But one of the best things about teaching is that I get to tell people things without feeling like I’m pontificating or being condescending or - hopefully - anyone else feeling like I’m talking down to them. I get to answer questions from people who still care and still want to know ‘why?’ I want to be able to engage with a generation of adults who care ‘why’ or know ‘why’ or can tell me ‘why’, and I don’t think that’s going to happen unless we help create one.
So that’s why I’m a teacher.
Why do you think an ampersand is called an ampersand? And why do you think it looks like this: &?
There are no wrong answers. The question is why you think so. Brainstorm! Here’s some thinking music from Belle & Sebastian (yes, you probably see ampersands every day! They’re in Barnes & Noble, Ben & Jerry’s, Black & Decker, and that’s just some of the ‘B’s!)
Click to viewSo what did you come up with? Great! (The ‘real’ answers are possibly just as apocryphal.) Ampersands began back when there was no printing press, so everything was handwritten, mostly in Latin. The Latin word for ‘and’ is ‘et’, and it (like our ‘and’) had to be written a lot. So people got lazy, and along the way it evolved into something that was easier to write: ET Et et &. Which is ironic, since these days most of us find it almost impossible to handwrite an ampersand, but we do pretty well with ‘e’s and ‘t’s. And why ‘ampersand’? Well, there was a time when &s were just called ands, and were treated as letters of the alphabet. As such, they would be rote chanted by students learning that alphabet, which ended with X, Y, Z, &. Now imagine singing the end of alphabet song if that were the case. “Double-u, ex, wy, zed and and.” (Or, if you’re so inclined “double-u, ex, wy, zee and and.”) Kind of confusing. So in the hope of ameliorating the confusion, teachers got students to end their alphabet with “and per se: and.” Meaning “and by itself: and!” And, as anyone who has ever heard a child sing the alphabet knows, like the origin of the ‘&’ itself, the letters seem to slur into each other (to the point where it sounds like there’s a letter called ‘elemeno’ between ‘kay’ and ‘pee’.) And that’s how “and per se: and” became “ampersand”.
That tangent was to demonstrate how teachers and students can change the world.
& that’s why I’m a teacher.
**********