Lately, I have been reflecting on my long, exhausting teaching career.

I started teaching because I needed a job. I had left University of Florida after a particularly tough lesson in graduate school politics, and I needed an adult job so that I could pay my very real adult bills. So I took on a job that I felt I could do relatively well and for which I didn't need a lot of experience. I stumbled upon teaching by accident, truthfully. I received a phone call from a principal who conducted a ph...