Teaching (Short Story)

Teaching is a short story by James Van Pelt. It appears in Star Anthology (#1, 1998), and Curious Fictions (Apr 12, 2019).

Word Count: 4,814

Author's Note
From Curious Fictions:

''People often say that teaching is a noble profession, and it is. It also has a huge dropout rate as teachers walk away from their jobs. Whatever positive pressures that keep teachers working and the negative ones that push them out, the future is unlikely to change. Chaucer once said of a character in his stories, "Gladly would he learn and gladly teach." Maybe that's the quality that keeps teachers going, that sense of gladness in the giving and taking.''

Epigraph
When I heard the learn'd astronomer,

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,

When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,

When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in his lecture room,

How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,

Till rising and gliding out I wandr'd off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

-Walt Whitman

Characters

 * William - a teacher

Summary
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Connections
This story and Nor a Lender Be both feature a device called a DeskTop and a teacher named William.