Why I Teach
By Christine D’Emma
I teach because I am a learner. I have a perpetual yearning to be in a classroom with students, engaging in conversation with them, learning them. I have to learn them so I know what makes them tick so I will give them the right book at the right time, or at least try.
I teach because I don’t have any answers, nor do I aspire to arrive at one. My endeavor is to explore, uncover, write, fail epically but gracefully, revise, edit. Repeat. What more is there than reading-writing-speaking-listening in a movement towards self-actualization? The resulting revelations legitimize one’s voice and inform one’s movement in our world. I write, read, inquire, argue, doubt, and hope alongside my students, participating in and witnessing our enmeshed humanity. This grappling is fundamental; I’m not sure that our truths are self-evident, perhaps just shades of them. I learn and teach in an effort to be generative — a lifelong limning out of our essential possibilities.
Christina D’Emma is a former English teacher at Cristo Rey Philadelphia High School.
