Sean McCarthy, English teacher

TKC: What made you want to become a teacher?

SM: I got out of college and I didn’t know what to do. I moved to Boston and I was a temp, which was pretty boring. I moved to Nashville, Tennessee, and I got a job at a box factory. Basically [the workers]  don’t hate their job, but they live for their vacation. They’re gonna do that for the rest of their lives because they were trapped. And I knew in the back of my mind – I did for a year and a half – that I wasn’t trapped because I had an education. And after about a year it occurred to me that I could leave but they couldn’t. And it became important to me to give people that some option that I had. 

TKC: What will you miss most about KHS?

SM: I’m going to miss the relationships that come from shared struggle. Everybody is in this crazy environment for a year, for freshmen for four years. It’s hard, right? Going through struggles together builds relationships. By the end, people feel connected to each other in a way that they didn’t feel when they first started. And I’m gonna miss that. I’m not gonna be struggling. I’m gonna be hanging out with grandkids. But this is a hard job for everybody, for you all, for me, we’re all going through it together. At the end, graduation rolls around. People feel a tremendous sense of relief and joy and satisfaction, because they’ve done something difficult. So I don’t know how I’m gonna handle it. I don’t get the difficulty of sometimes taxing. At the end of the day, I like to stress a little. I’m comfortable being uncomfortable. Relationships, whether it’s with my other teachers. We have pretty good relationships. I think it’s because I appreciate them. And they reach me, and I’m going to miss them. I’m not going to see 1600 people a day anymore.

TKC: How do you think teaching has changed?

SM: There’s a lot more reliance on technology. There’s a lot more emphasis on data. Less than more holistic. I’m required to type in these numbers, which I don’t find valuable. Because [my granddaughter] drew 70 smiley faces on my driveway yesterday with chalk. I used to teach with chalk and have dust all over me. See, that’s a thing of the past. There’s a lot of stuff you know. I’m a slow learner, and it’s taken me a while to get better with Schoology.

TKC: If you could describe your career at KHS in one sentence, what would it be?

SM: I just feel very fortunate to have ended up here.