Teacher Dreams

What is it that you dreamed you wanted to be when you grew up? Doctor, lawyer, Indian chief? Astronaut, pilot, parent, or chef? Artist, judge, police person, or politician? Teacher?

My best friend and I used to lie on our backs under the summer sky and dream about our futures. He was going to be a professional baseball player, a flame-throwing pitcher, and I dreamed of being a fireman like my grandfather, riding on the back of the ladder truck and rescuing crying babies swaddled in blankets from smoking second floors.

Somehow with the passage of time, that dream faded, and by the time I was graduated from college, I had other dreams.

It turned out alright, of course. It almost always does. I became a teacher and a coach and helped students pursue their own dreams: I helped them learn the fundamentals of critical reading, I coached them how to set a pick and then roll, I nurtured them to write precisely, and I taught them how to not to give up.

Taylor Simmers has not given up.

Taylor is a middle school English teacher at Lake Tahoe School, and ever since he was a young boy he has wanted to become a professional athlete. But when he stopped growing he was 5'6" and 155 pounds. And the sport in which he excelled - lacrosse - didn't have a pro league.

So Taylor went to Princeton where he was a two-time All American (as well as an Academic All-American) and led the Tigers to two NCAA championships. Though never a top scorer, Taylor was relentlessly competitive and had a knack of making everyone else on his team better. Plus he was well-coached in the fundamentals, and he knew the game inside and out.

After graduating from Princeton, Taylor coached for a year at his alma mater before earning a Masters degree at Brown and going into teaching. By this time lacrosse had a professional indoor league, and Taylor played for season with Philadelphia, but the indoor game wasn't well-suited to his size or his ability to quarterback a team, so he gave up his dream and focused on teaching and coaching.

In 2001, a professional outdoor league was launched, but there were no teams on the west coast where Taylor had, by this time, settled. However, this year the league expanded west, and a friend called Taylor to invite him to try out.

Taylor was 34, a bit creaky, and hadn't played competitively for years. But dreams die hard, so he began running, lifting, and stretching. He played catch against a wall for hours. When he tried out for the San Francisco Dragons, Taylor not only made the team but was named a starter. The coaches liked his competitiveness and how he never gave up, but most of all they liked his grasp of the fundamentals: how he rolled after setting a pick, how he always kept his head up, and how he strove to make his teammates better.

In a world in which role models are rare, Taylor's story is instructive, for he followed his dream without taking any shortcuts. And he revisited his dream later in life to make sure his first pursuit was not a fluke.

But perhaps most illuminating is that Taylor has found another dream in pursuit of his original one: he has become an inspirer of other dreams, dreams of his students.

The lessons he teaches his student are lessons about dreaming . . . dreaming big, dreaming wide, dreaming deep.

These are the dreams of a teacher.

--Steve McKibben
6/17/06