One of my Uber Chronicles stories.
My next ride is to ferry a woman from her home to her tutoring gig (her car has a flat tire) at a nearby learning academy. She’s thin, a mom of two, married, Black, mid-30s and delightfully smart. She’s getting her Master’s degree in education and plans on teaching middle school math.
I tell her my sister is a middle school math teacher and that she chose to teach middle school math after being in the Peace Corps and seeing—up close and personal—what lack of opportunity looks like. To her the math taught in middle school was more practical and more applicable to real life than high school math. I also share a saying my sister has often quoted: “Middle school teachers are born, not made.” Meaning, you either love teaching that age of kids … or you don’t.
She tells me she was in hospital administration, but she couldn’t stand the politics or stomach executives and companies making so much money while so many patients could barely pay their medical bills.
I tell her I like ubering for the gig, for the on-off-on-off nature of it, for the ability to make some money without having to be committed to a business that needs maintaining. She tells me that’s what she also likes about tutoring—she does it when she can.
As we live in the same community, I share my contact card and info about the local online calendar I created, and I tell her she may find there some interesting events to do with her kids and family.Key experience: I appreciate her honesty and integrity about her profession and her reasons for changing course.
