Mowing vs. Teaching

How mowing is better than teaching

1. Visible progress with every step forward. No need to wait months to see results.

2. No evaluations. In fact, my lawn doesn't have to please anyone but myself, and if I notice that the work I've done doesn't quite meet my standards, it takes only seconds to lower my standards.

3. It must be done outdoors in reasonably sunny weather.

4. I can wear my rattiest, tattiest clothes--and no one cares how much I sweat.

5. While the body pushes the mower or weed-whacker around the yard, the mind roams freely, with no need to seek coherence or order. 

How teaching is better than mowing

1. No one has ever paid me to mow a lawn--and considering how frequently I fail to meet my own standards of lawn care, no one ever will.

2.  Robert Frost's poem "Mowing" beautifully describes the silence of nature and Carl Sandburg's "Grass" dramatizes grass's ability to inexorably conceal evidence of man's brutality, but you'll notice that grass doesn't write poems. Indeed, Joyce Kilmer reminds us that "Only God can make a tree," but a tree can't make a poem about a tree any more than grass can write a poem about mowing. Sometimes I need the silence of nature, but when silence isn't enough, I go to the classroom.

3. I have never injured myself or shattered a window while teaching.  

4. Properly mowing my law requires a mower, a weed-whacker, gasoline, earplugs, eye protection, sturdy shoes, weed-whacker line, and lots of physical energy. Teaching also requires energy, preparation, and specialized equipment, but a pencil isn't loud, a book isn't greasy, and a computer doesn't smell of gasoline.

5. A mind wandering freely in isolation can experience creative epiphanies, but the lawn doesn't care about creativity or epiphanies. Minds commune in the classroom. Words are batted about. Learning happens. It's not as neat or visible as a freshly-mowed strip of lawn, but it's just as satisfying.