People often ask me why I prefer to teach at a community college when I have degrees from more elite institutions. Let me tell you how I respond. First, I tell them, the misconceptions about community colleges run rampant. Yet I've found that at Bristol Community College in southeastern Massachusetts, where I teach, the majority of our students are single mothers valiantly struggling to establish some modicum of security for themselves and their children through education. Their personal stories attest to the mind-blowing power of students determined to defy the odds.
Students come to the community college with unbridled optimism.
In fact, I am honored to have taught my community-college students. They make me proud, and they shame me, too, for they have surmounted much greater roadblocks than any I ever faced, and their ambitions for themselves make mine for them seem so small. They make it easy to celebrate their successes and hard to forget their struggles. Students are drawn to the community college by the infectious sense of belonging that such a place emanates. They remind you of the exact amount they're paying for every minute of your time in a class, and then turn around and offer you their gratitude for the priceless experience you've given them in a course.