ABSTRACT
Jack has come to teaching as a third career. First, he spent time in the army. Then, he was a medical technologist and in medical sales for three decades. Finally, in his fifties, he turned to teaching, a love that he had wanted to pursue as a young man. After completing an alternative teacher certification program, he accepted his first teaching job as a middle school physical sciences teacher. He was very excited, but his excitement was quickly tempered with the realities of the classroom and life in schools. One of the biggest surprises was the wide range of talents and the diversity of the learners present in his classes. He had kids who couldn’t read, students new to the United States who were struggling to learn English, students who were very smart, kids not interested in school or learning, poor kids and rich kids, and there were twice as many boys than girls.
