The Public School Mess

<![CDATA[For most of my life, I’ve wanted to do two things: teach and write. I’ve now done both, but I’ve been more successful at one than the other. I went to college to be a teacher. It took me five and a half years to get my degree and teacher certification. It took me a year and a half of substitute teaching to get a teaching position. I taught 9th-grade English and, later, World Geography at a majority minority high school southwest of Houston. I was teaching there on 9/11. I quit two years later. I lasted all of five years. It took me longer to get my degree and teacher certification than the time I was actually on the job. ]]>