Why do I love my job so much?

I love my job. It is the ying to my yang, the "pop" in my popsicle, the bag around my loose-leaf tea. However, as my job search for next fall begins, some questions about why I look forward to Mondays begin to emerge. Is it this school in particular that keeps me working until bedtime or rather enthusiasm for teaching in general that sets my alarm for sunrise? What aspects of this school are essential to perpetuate this giddy feeling towards work at my next job?

Firstly, there is the high of being in the classroom. I can't believe how quickly the minute hand ticks toward the hour. Only five minutes left? No! But don't leave me you are all so dear and wonderful. I'm serious; they keep me jazzed like an Art Blakely solo. Bapapatata! If I could teach a 2-hour block rather than one, I would.

Secondly, lesson-planning causes neurons to fire in my right frontal lobe in a pleasing way. As the freshman ramp up to start A Midsummer Night's Dream we dove into iambic pentameter today: what is that? How will I explain it clearly? What activities will allow them to manipulate the material and make it there own? Creativity abounds.

I love culling information on the internet, comparing various explanations, and piecing together one to call my own. I hop downstairs to chat with the Shakespeare veterans and they toss a few sonnets my way drizzled with wisdom of experience. Which must be reason number three of why I love my job: my co-workers impress me. I just finished a thirty-minute jam session with a Shakespeare buff in my department about the last two lines of sonnet 130:
"And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare"

The faculty I work with are bright, interesting, and kind. They create a sense of community by sharing materials and extending invitations to their lunchroom table; will I find that at other schools?

Reason 4: The laptop program (I love how it places students in the driver's seat).
Reason 5: Surprises. Students teaching me new things about a text I thought I groked completely.
Reason 6: Quality above the bar. When students lift the boards and nails of a loosely framed English project and not only erect a scaffolding, but pour a foundation and paint a wall as well, it just drops my jaw open.

Don't get me wrong, I get tired. I get burnt out. I go home after school and wake up in the dark. When no creative energy trickles through my spinal chord, I grade papers. Grading reveals the gaps in their understanding and I decipher what tomorrow's lesson plan is about.

Perhaps teaching is the perfect ADD profession: you get to hop between so many different activities (lesson planning, department meetings, student conferences, grading) there is one for every mood. But are "kids" the same everywhere or are the students where I work more enjoyable to be around?