"What I Did for Love": connected to "The Green Monongahela," 6/23

The musical seems ancient now. 

There's a musical called A Chorus Line.  It's a Broadway show about a dance audition at a Broadway show. None of the dancers at the audition will be the featured Star. They're just trying to get their big break in the chorus line.  As theydo their dance audition, they tell their story and sing it.  The audience waits to see who will make the final cut and be cast in the musical within a musical.

One of the dancers sings about how tough it is to make it in the professional dance world, but how she chased her dream in spite of the odds.  She sings, "...point me toward tomorrow / We did what we had to do / Won't forget, can't regret / What I did for love.."  (Songwriters Marvin Hamlisch, Edward Kleban).

In the first blog, I mentioned teaching in a bunch of departments.  I left college certified to teach in four areas because the teaching job market was so bad.  I was trying to not be the unemployed college graduate who moved back home.  (And it did work out.  I was hired where I did student teaching.)  But I didn't know.  One never knows.  I felt like I was taking a huge risk by following this dream of helping people.  I stepped forward in faith, thinking/hoping that I wouldn't "regret what I did for love."

So why talk about all this?  (Well, besides the fact that I'm supposed to reflect autobiographically...)  The reason for writing about it is my reading in the Foundations book.  My chapter is about a man who quit an easy and profitable job writing advertising jingles to become a substitute teacher and take all kinds of abuse from students and staff alike.  Yet he made a difference for a student about whom he writes.  He was influenced by the adults who'd been his mentors when he was young.  He had to give back.  He just had to!  And it was what he did for love. 

I felt like I had to give back too.   Mr. Clark, the teacher whom I named when we went around the circle, did so  much for me that I felt like I needed to repay the favor to the next generation.  Mr. Clark was a demanding teacher, who taught us to THINK and to take a stance and defend our beliefs with logical arguments, yet he had a mischievous sense of humor.  He spent time talking to me at a time when my self-worth was really low.  He encouraged me with advice and by pushing me to go past my comfort zone with leadership in class.  He was a hero and a father-figure.  We kept in touch with holiday cards over the years.  He died last July, and I'm still quite moved about it.  I'm planning to write to his wife and tell her that he was honored in our class. 

I know I've affected some kids.  Whether I'll be a lifelong influence for anyone, I may never know.  But when they change my schedule or give me more to do or when we have to re-vamp all our courses because Ohio is changing the Standards, what keeps me going through all the long hours of work is that I have a chance to make a difference for some student who needs it.  It's what I do for love.

Gatto, John Taylor. "The Green Monongahela." Educational Foundations: An
     Anthology of Critical Readings. Ed. Bruce A. Marlowe and Alan S.
     Canestrari. 2nd ed. Los Angeles: Sage, 2010. 8-14. Print.

Hamlisch, Marvin, and Edward Kleban. "What I Did For Love Lyrics."
     Metrolyrics: Beyond the Words. MetroLeap Media, Inc., 2004-2011. Web.

     9 July 2011. <http://www.metrolyrics.com/ what-i-did-for-love-

     lyrics-a-chorus-line.html>.