William Ryder

The Autobiography of a Teacher, June 18, 2007

I'm sure we have, in all our years of schooling, heard our teachers say they became teachers for a wide variety of reasons, the most common of which might be that they wanted to share their subject with people, or that they simply loved dealing with students, or that they were inspired by their own former teachers. I know through the years, I've heard many reasons. But, my question becomes for the purposes here in English Composition class, are these answers to be considered substantive? Are these the kinds of answers for which students in a college, university or even in the business professional environment would receive cudos, praises, from their professors. Is this what a professor means when s/he says to students, "Give me a substantive answer?"

I first reflected on how I became a teacher, why I became a teacher, when I was in Graduate School at Louisiana State University, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. As I thought more and more about it, I realized that there is no one reason that led me to what I see as my calling in life. It is where I am most content in life. But, what does that mean? Why are you going to become what you are going to become in your own life? What are the circumstances that lead us to such life changing decisions?

When I was 36 years old (I'm 64 now), I found myself on the Mississippi River Bridge in New Orleans. I was facing a decision in my life. I was trying to decide whether to jump off that bridge or not. I had in my car all that was left of what represented my life, to me. But, the most important thing in the car was a one gallon jug of what is called in Louisiana as "Mad Dog Twenty-Twenty", wine. And about twenty bucks. All morning long, I had been asking myself how I had come to this place in my life, and it wasn't the first time in the last two years that I had asked myself these questions. I had figured out that I had gone through about 16 million dollars in the course of ten years (in various careers, a real estate developer/builder, a real estate broker, a stock broker, a banker, a television/movie executive and a myriad of others), and here I was, worrying about whether or not I had it in me to rob someone to get the money for my booze. What was I going to do; I had no place to live (my uncle had kicked me out of the house trailer he had rented to me.), and I now had no job, no way to support my life. The only thing that seemed to matt