And later that day...

I went this evening to rehearsal for our local community chorus. I spoke with our director, a very nice Southern gentleman-type. He asked if I still taught at my school. I replied, yes, I teach high school English. He said, "What a waste! You should be teaching music!"

Hum. I've never had anyone tell me that my teaching English was a waste. Now, he was only being very sweet, and telling me that I could contribute to the musical world. A pleasant thought. I responded to him that the grading load was rather heavy for me, and he added that there's little grading as such, for a music teacher.

Tempting. I've never had formal vocal teaching, but I could teach piano. Still, I think I would miss the literature. Literature is just academically HEAVY. There's a lot of material, the reading is increasingly difficult for modern teenagers to comprehend or enjoy, and the sheer weight of being responsible for training them to write well and to understand their literary history, is a yoke upon the shoulders.

Why IS teaching so tiring? I ask myself that. I only work 8 hours each day. I have 1 1/2 hours to myself, for planning and grading. I have a large, pleasant room, books around me, a laptop and other tools given to me by the school, well-behaved students who hang on my words. But it's so much harder than sitting at a desk somewhere, or filing or typing. I have to be ON - in charge - I have to constantly know more than they know and be able to answer all their questions. I have to control the classroom with my personality for 1 1/2 hours at a time.

That's hard for an introvert.

I often think I'd rather be a librarian, gathering dust among the bookstacks somewhere.