Why I Teach

Ask two teachers why they teach, and you’re likely to get two completely different responses.

As you’ll see, many teachers at Cheshire Academy have their own reasons for teaching, but they all share similar goals and aspirations for their students. For some, they pursued a career in teaching as a result of the positive impact their teachers had on them. For others, it’s to witness that “lightbulb moment” during which time a student sees exactly what they’re capable of.

Continue reading to understand how and why, in their own words, some of our faculty members chose to teach.

Allison Bass-Riccio

DEPARTMENT: English

YEAR STARTED AT CA: 2018

YEARS IN TEACHING: 11

WHY I TEACH: The subject of English is a vehicle I use to help students understand more about themselves, their community, and the world around them. In turn, I learn more about myself, my community, and the world around me. This is why I teach: the reciprocal relationship between teaching and learning. My students make me a better person; knowing them helps me to be my best self. I can only hope that they grow from knowing me as well.

Samuel Fowler

DEPARTMENT: Mathematics and Roxbury

YEAR STARTED AT CA: 2021

YEARS IN TEACHING: Less than one

WHY I TEACH: When I was in high school, I went to see slam poet Taylor Mali at a local community college. One of Mali’s goals was to help inspire 1,000 people to become educators. I was one of those people. Mali has a poem which he performed that night called “What Teachers Make.” When I saw him perform, I was incredibly inspired. The poem really got into how important the job as an educator is, and after hearing it, I began peer tutoring at my school. One of my teachers who had a connection to the local private boarding school, Forman School, heard about my peer tutoring, and had heard about an opportunity at Forman for private tutoring there as well. She connected me to the director of academics at the time, and he gave me an opportunity to tutor Forman students in math. My tutoring ran all the way through high school, and began again toward the end of college. I continued tutoring at Forman until I got a full-time job there, and actually performed the slam poem to the student body at a morning meeting, which is something I’ve considered doing at CA.

Laura Longacre

DEPARTMENT: Language

YEAR STARTED AT CA: 1992

YEARS IN TEACHING: 35

WHY I TEACH: When I describe why I teach at CA, I usually say, “Keep the students and the mission at the forefront of everything that we do.” Times, methods, books, and programs change and evolve, but the needs of our young people remain at the heart of the educational process.

Matthew A. Goetz

DEPARTMENT: English

YEAR STARTED AT CA: 2021

YEARS IN TEACHING: 8

WHY I TEACH: I do not necessarily feel that I have pearls of wisdom to offer; nevertheless, I am confident that I have an endless amount of sand that others can use to make their pearls.

I became a teacher because I wanted to give away sand: I wanted to ask questions and partner with others in pursuit not of answers to my questions, but rather toward the refinement of my questions themselves and toward the development and refinement of the questions of others.

I became a teacher because I appreciate companioning with students through worthy struggles of our own co-creation.

I became a teacher to experience those moments of getting it: when a student realizes how extraordinarily they achieved something that not that long ago they were unable even to comprehend—paired with my realization that something I had planned yielded an outcome for which I could not have planned.

I celebrate the confusion of teaching and learning, the messiness of teaching and learning, the unknowingness of teaching and learning, the doubt of teaching and learning—the constant questioning of why else and how else and why not and when and how and to what extent.

I celebrate the distinct challenge of taking an entire summer to plan every day of the academic year and then throughout that academic year evaluating the success of the plan, changing it in response to what I recognize as the individual needs of my students—and then doing it all over again.

I celebrate the multitasking rush of a 70-minute instructional period when I’m thinking about how each student is experiencing the lesson, thinking about attendance, thinking about documenting individual student performance, thinking about who is where in the classroom space, thinking about the extent to which we are achieving the goals for today, thinking about what comes next in our course of study, thinking about the next dad joke that will fall flat.

The dynamism and generative nature of the classroom, the connections formed with students and with content and with skills and with colleagues, the opportunity to learn more about myself and others and the world in which we reside and for which we care, the hope that something that I do or that I say or that I assign will increase the likelihood that my students will be seen and understood in their pursuit of positive social change. That’s a good, brief, generally superficial introduction to why I do what I do.

Kate Daly ’05

DEPARTMENT: Library

YEAR STARTED AT CA: 2021

YEARS IN TEACHING: 1

WHY I TEACH: While getting my MLIS, I had to do an elevator pitch for my dream job. On the spot, I said library director at Cheshire Academy. Less than a year later, my internship at the Library of Congress was canceled, and I called Claudette Hovasse, director of library services at CA, in a panic. Internship turned into job offer, librarian turned into interim library director upon Claudette's retirement.

Stepping foot back on campus was returning home. Getting to work alongside Claudette in her final year, in a space that means everything to both of us, has been nothing short of magic. Having a group of advisees who I have shed actual tears of pride for has been the most rewarding part, and sitting with my advisees at the same table I sat at for morning meeting as a student was the most intense full circle moment I've ever experienced. Add in the fact that I returned with my best friend of 20 years, there are some days I can't imagine how I lasted 16 years before coming back.

Yvonne Hewu

DEPARTMENT: Language

YEAR STARTED AT CA: 2013

YEARS IN TEACHING: 15

WHY I TEACH: There are no two days in the classroom that are ever the same. I enjoy observing a new level of confidence in the students who see evidence of their success or being around students when they have their “lightbulb moment” and see what they are capable of. I teach because I can't think of anything else as challenging or rewarding.

Chip Boyd P’10

DEPARTMENT: English

YEAR STARTED AT CA: 1988

YEARS IN TEACHING: 27

WHY I TEACH: When you teach at one school for 34 years (and counting), the depth and complexity of your cumulative memories becomes overwhelming. The sheer number of students in classes and players on teams rises into the thousands. How does one sort through all this? In a sense, it’s impossible. I have enjoyed so many positive and interesting relationships with students and colleagues it is beyond my abilities to do justice to it all in a short article, to explain all that it has meant to me. However, I will try, through a few anecdotes and generalizations, to tell at least part of the essential story of why I teach and what I have experienced at Cheshire Academy.

Some moments stand out in memory. They are like snapshots; something vivid and emotionally powerful stands out for reasons we sometimes can describe and sometimes can’t. I hope that the few that I share will illuminate some of the deeper feelings I have about teaching.

I was once chatting courtside—at least 15 years ago now—with a local tennis friend about a match being played in front of us. As he listened to me talk about the tennis team and the players on it, he was moved to remark that, as a businessman, all he ever received from anyone was an occasional, perfunctory thank you note, while the relationships I was describing were “incredible.” The strength of his words surprised me a little bit, but I quickly realized that I was taking my relationships with my players for granted. Being close to all the members of my team was simply natural, a source of nourishment, fun and interest every single day that was a source of genuine wonder to someone observing from the outside.

I have experienced the highest and lowest places in coaching, all the joys and pains that are part of competition and striving for excellence. Many truly thrilling matches, going back many years, are still vivid in my memory. It’s easy to see why. The nearly unbearable excitement in the critical phases of those matches etched itself into my soul. And, of course, in those moments when victory arrived, it was sheer joy. And there have been bitter defeats, of course, and they, too, brought their own important

meanings to us as players and coaches. In addition to the thrills of team competition, I have vivid memories of those special moments when any player, at any stage of development, would suddenly find a new level of play within themselves. Such moments occur by surprise after months or even years of committed effort to improve: the player finds a rhythm, sees the ball better, the game slows down a little. The happiness of these moments is intense, and I’ve loved every one of them, regardless of the context in which they occurred. Coaching tennis has been a joy and a challenge demanding the best of me every day, and I am grateful for the opportunity I have had at CA.

I once had a student in English class, a one-year senior. Max was a carefree, enthusiastic kid; he would show up to class with his guitar and ask if he could play in class. I would sometimes say yes, for a few minutes. When a two-page draft was due, he would turn in an interesting half-page full of soulful ideas. I don’t remember exactly, but I expect he was a “C” student in English. Many years later, I got an email from Max. “You probably won’t remember me,” it began (but I did), “but I want to tell you a story. I was about to begin a school program in anesthesiology when I received a phone call from a beloved aunt. She had learned that she had a fatal form of cancer and wanted me to take over as the leader of a non-profit she had founded focused on developing literacy skills in disadvantaged communities. She asked me to decide quickly. Within 24 hours, I let her know I would accept her offer. The things we used to talk about in your English class were a big factor in my decision.” To be honest, I was a little blown away by this, but it stands as a good example of how little we know about the potential and futures of the kids we teach. If we are paying adequate attention, teaching leads us to a fundamental humility that is necessary to our own development as teachers to be sure, but also as human beings seeking knowledge in an uncertain and complex world. I was teaching Max, and he was teaching me, and countless other students have done so as well.

In a way somewhat analogous to tennis, there have been many times when a student has risen to a new level of academic excitement and accomplishment. Such moments are thrilling in a quieter way than those on the courts but are also more profound. Happily, I could tell many stories here but will focus on just one. In a ninth-grade humanities class years ago, a very good student came into class with a two-page essay. It was an opinion-editorial piece about genetic engineering of human beings. We had read novels—Frankenstein was one choice—and other sources on the topic for many weeks. When she came into class, she exclaimed, “This was so hard to write, but it was so interesting!” You won’t be surprised to hear that it was excellent. Such moments of intellectual growth—and there can be many different expressions of this—are the main source of the joy of teaching. This is obvious in a sense, but a teacher can decide that nurturing such moments is their main mission as a teacher, and that has many consequences. I have made pursuit of intellectual joy and excitement the central goal of my teaching life, and I am deeply grateful for the many students who have enhanced my journey through their passion, effort and excellence.

Lastly, teaching offers us a chance, every day, to actively love the good and beautiful things of the world and some of the people in it. As readers know, many teachers at CA are close with many of their students. Legendary Head of School Arthur Sheriff encouraged this during his long tenure. On the sidelines of a football game just this year, I encountered one of my very recent students from my Theory of Knowledge course. We exchanged a hug, as I often do with alumni, and then had an extended conversation. She had been an excellent student in my class and, unsurprisingly, was continuing that excellence in college. After about 20 minutes she was set to go, but before she did, she hugged me again. What can one say? It gave me a wonderful, joyful feeling. To have a job where you can—you must?— earn the love and respect of intelligent, discerning young people year after year, day after day, is a precious opportunity, and I have done my best to meet that considerable challenge. Of all the things I’ve shared, this final anecdote is the most revealing of all about “why I teach.”

Caron Quantick

DEPARTMENT: Science

YEAR STARTED AT CA: 2015

YEARS IN TEACHING: 20

WHY I TEACH: I teach because my teachers made such a profound impact on me and I hope to do the same for my students. My students have helped to shape who I am today and who I am evolving to be in the future. They keep me young. They remind me how much good there is in the world. They have taught me so much.