I Never Considered Being a Teacher… Until I Was: Stories & Reflections from Decades of Teaching & Learning – Introduction & TOC

An Introduction to My Life in Classrooms & Table of Contents for my Stories & Reflections

by Jeff Bloom 

A former grades 2—12 teacher of science and other fields & a former university professor “officially” in science teacher education, as well as in qualitative research and curriculum studies, but also a hopeless transcontextualist who taught a general freshman introductory seminar on “Ecology of Mind” & graduate courses on complexity and metapatterns in teaching and learning..

For other articles in this series, visit the Table Of Contents below

For articles by other authors, see the Section Table of Contents

 At about 12 years old, my life’s aspiration was to be a marine biologist who specialized in sharks. Through high school and the first year of university, that’s all I considered. And, it all started when my mom bought me a book: Lady With a Spear by Eugenie Clark. Dr. Clark was one of the top shark experts in the world at the time.[[1]] I was so excited by her book that I wrote a letter telling her about my interest in sharks and if should could offer some guidance. A few weeks later, I got a letter back. She said she was too busy to help, but that I should write to Jack Casey at Sandy Hook Marine Laboratory. I did just that and a few weeks later I received a package with a couple of booklets on sharks and a jar with several preserved shark embryos. Sandy Hook hooked me and I spent much of the next six years dissecting, investigating, and experimenting with sharks. 

However, unbeknownst to me at the time, I had already planted a teaching “seed.” In the latter part of elementary school, some friends and I often set up a front porch museum with things we had found. What we had found and displayed to “teach” the neighbors about were rocks, minerals, butterflies and other insects (both dead and mounted and alive in jars), turtles, lizards, earthworms (which we hunted for at night), and a few Native American artifacts. In grade-10, I acquired a live shark from Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory, which, of course, died after a few days. Very few people knew how to keep a marine aquarium, especially for the intense needs of sharks. However, shortly after that the Aquarama, an aquarium showplace, in Philadelphia, invited me to use one of their saltwater tanks for my explorations of sharks. I was flying pretty high at that point. But, during that time and a couple of years later when they hired me as an aquarist, I spent considerable time talking with visitors (more teaching) about various fish, marine mammals, and the other animals they had on display. 

During the second semester in my freshman year in university, I was hired to teach the labs for their biology 101 courses. I just couldn’t get away from teaching. Later, I worked with kids in an after school program… and again more teaching. But, it never sank in that teaching might be a possible path in the future. After a year of taking graduate courses in zoology at the University of Rhode Island, I landed my very first full-time professional job at the New York Ocean Science Laboratory at the very end of Long Island, New York. My childhood “dream” was realized! But, after about 8 months at that lab, I made the mistake of reading 36 Children by Herbert Kohl.[[2]] And, that book, turned me on to the “idea” of teaching. Four months later, I was walking into my first teaching job at a Friends school in New York City. That school liked getting raw meat like me. I had never had a course in education, which they preferred. Without that background, they could provide the kinds of experiences that would help me teach kids more in line with their philosophy. And, that they did. I was spoiled by that position, but I still had much, much more to learn. Actually, if you take teaching seriously, your learning never ends. And, that learning isn’t necessarily the subject matter you are teaching. After all, if you  are teaching some “thing,” you ought to have a pretty good understanding of the material before you even begin. What you do learn is mostly surprising, frequently humbling, and almost always intriguing. You learn from your own mistakes and your own insights that emerge from the dynamics of interaction, but you especially learn from your students, whether they are children or adults.  

 The following stories and reflections highlight some of these learning moments, as well as other situations where I confronted a variety of situations that offered learning opportunities that were wonderful and enriching, jaw-dropping, incredibly painful, or just not particularly desired. In other words, my learning from teaching included the best of what educational contexts can offer to the worst aspects of the ugly underbelly of educational contexts. 

NOTES

[[1]] Eugenie Clark, “the shark lady,” was born in 1922. She was among the first to utilize Scuba diving specifically for research purposes in marine biology. Much of her career was spent at Mote Marine Laboratories in the Bahamas and Florida along the Gulf of Mexico. She was active until her death in 2015.  

 [[2]] Herbert Kohl was born in 1937, and is known as a major voice for “progressive” education. Or, in other words, he has been a radical educator who’s concern for children’s meaningful and relevant learning pre-empted curricular mandates and the various agendas of educational institution.  

© 2025 by Jeffrey W Bloom

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Jeff Bloom’s Stories and Reflections

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