Newspaper Article

My View: Don't Ever Judge Someone By Their Paycheck

Taylor Mali Special to CNN

2012

Overview

(CNN) -- Editor's Note: Taylor Mali spent nine years in the classroom teaching everything from English and history to math and SAT test preparation. He is an advocate for teachers and speaks at education conferences and teachers' workshops. His book, \"What Teachers Make: In Praise of the Greatest Job in the World,\" will be released on March 29. \"Empty pockets never held anyone back. Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that.\"-- Norman Vincent Peale, American minister and author On one level, my new book, \"What Teachers Make: In Praise of the Greatest Job in the World,\" is an explication and expansion in prose of a piece of writing that first came to me in the form of poetry. At a New Year's Eve party in 1997, a young lawyer managed to insult me and the entire teaching profession by essentially saying that no person dumb enough to want to be a teacher should be allowed to actually become a teacher. The poem I wrote in the weeks that followed, \"What Teachers Make,\" is the response I wish I had been smart enough to give to the lawyer at the party.

• Publisher: St. Joseph News - Press