40 Years and Counting - Why I am Still Teaching

I was at church yesterday, and a friend asked me if I was still teaching. I told him that in two weeks, I would be starting my 40th year. He looked at me and said, “When are you going to stop?” He then told me how he had taken early retirement from his long-time place of work. He is happily retired and enjoying his life, and wonders why I haven’t retired yet. On the surface, it's probably a good question. He isn’t the first to ask. And frankly, I have asked the question myself. 

My response was that I still love teaching. I teach at the best school I have ever taught at, and my students and colleagues challenge and inspire me every day. He proceeded to tell me that in his last 27 years at his job, he had 27 different bosses. Yikes! 

With so many teachers leaving the profession and the disruptions caused by COVID-19 and AI in schools, why am I going back? 

Amazing Students

As part of the conversation, my friend's wife asked me what I taught. I told her: “I teach kids”. What she wanted me to say was that I taught high school science. But at its heart, teaching is not only the subjects I teach, but at its heart, its the students I get to work with. They are what drive me to keep on going. Their energy, optimism, and curiosity are what drives me. 

Sure, there are times when they exasperate me. They're a bunch of teenagers. They sometimes make poor decisions and fail to think before acting. That’s OK. It’s a part of growing up. We were all teenagers once.. They are in the midst of a huge changes and are all trying to figure out who they are and where they fit. I consider it a privilege to have had some impact on their life journey.

Amazing Colleagues

I work at a school that simultaneously demands excellence of students and yet at the same time intentionally develops the whole child. One of our schools signature programs is that we develop students into leaders. As students move through our program, they begin to take on more personal responsibility and it shows. A school like mine doesn’t happen by accident. It requires vision, leadership, and a strong commitment and buy in by all staff. From the head of school to the custodian, all of us have a role to play to develop the students entrusted to us. And by and large, our staff has embraced this vision and I am energized to be a part of it. 

Our Only Hope is our Kids

A society that fails to invest in its children will ultimately collapse. We need dedicated, caring, and passionate adults to invest in the lives of our students. I know it can be hard. It is! But our kids deserve the best. You may not believe this, but they crave adults to speak into their lives. Behind a veneer of standoffishness, my experience suggests that today’s students, more than ever, want to know that there is an adult who has their best interests at heart. They know they are entering a world with many challenges and problems. They want you, the adult, to lead them on a positive path. I still have some more energy to give to my students. It has kept me young, and their youthful optimism has had a profoundly positive impact on me. Though I am the adult in the room, they inspire me and give me hope for our world. 

They Need Our Protection

I am increasingly concerned about the adverse effects of the digital world in which students are enmeshed. Add in AI, and we have a poison soup that could bring untold harm and suffering to our kids. We gave devices to our kids in the early 2010’s and childhood has never been the same since. I have had an interesting career. I taught for 24 years in Colorado and then was director of technology for two years. I then left my position at a school in 2012, after my first book was published. I then traveled the world teaching teachers how to flip their classes and helped them implement active learning at scale. 

But then I returned to the classroom in 2019, and things had changed. When I left teaching 2011, cell phones were just getting normalized in schools. But when I returned, they were everywhere. I liken my experience to that of the frog in the pot of water. If you put a frog in hot water, it jumps out. However, if you slowly heat up the water, the frog will stay until it is cooked. I jumped out of the school system and missed the gradual heating up of the water, and when I got back in the hot water, I was shocked. I saw a much higher incidence of teenage anxiety, depression, and a myriad of other issues. 

As I have researched what happened, I am convinced that big tech companies designed the most addictive programs, games, and platforms that have ever existed and then marketed them to our kids. Our kids didn’t have a chance! We left them alone with their devices, and it hasn’t ended well. And AI is likely to make things worse unless we take action. One example of this is the AI Companion Apps. If you don’t know about these yet, your teenagers do. These are “AI friends” where they have longform conversations with people. A recent study by Common Sense Media found that 72% of teenagers have tried an AI companion app, and 52% of them are considered regular users. These apps are replacing real human relationships, and many of them have gone in very dark and disturbing directions. 

A recent study by Common Sense Media found that 72% of teenagers have tried an AI companion app, and 52% of them are considered regular users

Our students need people to speak the truth to our students  about what is happening. One thing I plan to do in the first week or two of school is to have a frank discussion about these issues, so that I can help set up my students to thrive in the challenging world they live in. 

I Am Optimistic for Gen Z

When I tell adults that I am a teacher, some of them will launch into a tirade about Gen Z. They describe them as lazy, entitled, and having short attention spans, among other things. Despite the challenges students face in today’s world, I am optimistic that they will rise to meet these challenges. My students look out for one another, they have purpose, and their is a growing realization that some of the harm done to them by big tech companies needs to stop. They are starting to step up to address the real issues of our day and I think we will all be better for what they bring to the world. 

So I suppose, I still have more to give. I’m not done yet.