I was hired as a substitute when I was 23 at Tucson High. Three weeks later I had my own series of classes of at risk kids. They taught me so much. When I moved to San Francisco for my MFA I was hired to fill the enormous shoes of Dr Edward Teller, the renowned physicist who had taught at the Lisa Kampner Hebrew Academy for 20 years. The assignment also came with eighth graders. And even as I taught them evolution, the great man Rabbi Pinchas Lipner supported me unconditionally. I may never teach in a better school.