What a great question Rachel Gilman. Thanks for asking.

Speaking for myself, when I went back to grad school for my PhD, I left a tenure-track teaching job at a good community college. I had a wife, two kids, and no credit because I had just filed for bankruptcy.

We lived off student loans, government peanut butter, and financial help from my parents.

I knew I had to teach, but I was already in a teaching position — so I didn’t go back to grad school for that. I went back because it was obvious that without a PhD my teaching career would be capped at pretty much my current position as an Instructor, and I needed more.

My Father was a University faculty member, so maybe that had something to do with my need, but mostly I think for me it was this:

My education, at every level, was an exercise in trauma. I attended abusive, violent, inner-city schools during the 1970’s. City schools at the time were confronted by forced racial integration and teacher strikes. I was extraordinarily bright, and skipped up a grade in an attempt to keep me challenged, but my grades were consistently poor.

I now believe that there was something about the trauma of my childhood that required my to return to the classroom, but this time from a position of control. I think I needed to go back to school to try and fix everything I thought was wrong with the education system, because something in my unconscious mind thought that was the best way to fix myself.

I was wrong.

The best way to “fix” myself is to focus on resolving my trauma without having to take control of my students, my University, or the education system as a whole.

So I’m working on it.

However, I’ve heard from so many former students about the positive difference that I’ve helped them make in their lives that I have no regrets about my choices, even if I misunderstood the reasons at the time. Now, there is no going back for me.

I was joking with my daughter the other day. She knows that I take risks in the classroom (like using improv theater) for which I get criticized on my teaching evaluations, and she knows how unpopular I am at the moment with my current administration.

“Emma Seager,” I told her. “Someday, I might be living in a van down by the river. But it will be a nice van, and it will be a nice river.

“And I will have a white board, and I will be teaching.”