I never wanted to be a teacher. My father always made fun of the profession -- he said teachers were a pompous lot. Yet, when I actually started teaching, I found it was rewarding. Like many others in our field, I think I fell into the adult education profession, yet my story is more unusual than most.

I was traveling around the country at a leisurely pace. I was living the classic hippie lifestyle: traveling in a Volkswagen van with two dogs, a guy, and most of my worldly possessions. Our plan was to spend months in various parts of the country and stay longer if we liked the area. As we were entering Austin, Texas, our engine caught on fire. We pulled over into the closest place, which happened to be the Godfather's Lounge, and there I, along with the rest of the neighborhood, watched the car as flames engulfed it. I made good use of our Mardi Gras beads, as I used them to prevent the dogs from jumping back into the burning car. I didn't lose everything, but I didn't have much left.

The decision to stay in Austin had been made for me. With little money and an empty shell for a car, I wasn't moving in the near future. I had been unemployed for several months, so I was eligible for a government-sponsored employment program. Maybe it was fate, but the local community college had a job opening for an adult education teacher, and they were interested in me immediately.

When I first started teaching, I was very naive. I remember arguing with a middle-aged woman because she told me that she didn't know what a paragraph was. I thought that she was just being contrary, but I later realized that I was the one who was being foolish. Overall, I enjoyed working with a diverse group. In the beginning, I worked with an older population (many were older than I) in a competency-based high school diploma program. They were eager to learn. Since education was a choice instead of parental order, these students realized the value of education. I enjoyed working with students who had never imagined the possibility of academic success.

Of course, I should mention that was over twenty years ago and I'm still teaching. Over the years I've done so many different things in adult education: alternative high school diploma, ESL, GED, and e-learning. I don't feel as if I've had the same job. I still derive satisfaction from convincing people that they can turn their lives around. I find teaching in adult education is a constant process of persuasion and negotiation.

I've probably helped close to a thousand people obtain their GED credentials, but I'm still excited when they receive that piece of paper. Even though I, like many others in the field, didn't plan on a career in adult education, working as a teacher has convinced me that my perceived misfortune was actually a happy accident.

Joan Reissman is a math instructor and associate program director at JFY-Boston. She can be reached at: jreissman@jfynet.org