What are some of the key joys and challenges of being a Latin teacher?
Besides being a Latin teacher, I also teach film and advise the Model UN program at MS54. The joys and challenges for all of these are deeply intertwined. In fact, I would submit that the challenges are the joys. The joy-challenges are the unexpected, the unfamiliar, and the defiant of easy summation.
Tell us about any special projects or initiatives you are most proud of this year.
I don’t believe that I have participated in any special project or initiative that would differ substantially from any other year. The projects and initiatives are always the daily interactions and, as such, are always dialogical and irreducible. They are not attributable to a single person any more than they are indicative of wider patterns beyond the lives, however momentarily experienced, of the individuals concerned.
Over the course of your career, what do you consider some of your greatest accomplishments to date?
The greatest accomplishment is a better understanding of how to care.
What drives you and keeps you motivated to continue your hard work as a teacher on a daily basis?
The individual children, of course. Their wit, trials, and, above all, their resistance to both qualification and quantification.
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