No Stone Unturned

By Daniel Robb

Last summer, I was reminded why it is I return, now and then, to teaching. And the chance to get back in the classroom came about the way this kind of thing often does in a small community. But first, a little background.

Most of the time, I'm a writer and a carpenter, and as I think about it, I'm not sure which one predominates. A major house recently published my first book, but later today I'll be out in the wind, on a ladder, at the edge of Buzzards Bay, putting new shutters on an old summer home. So I must be a carpenter, right? But when people ask me what I do, I still say most easily, "I'm a teacher." Why is that?

I guess it's because I have taught, off and on, for about 10 years— mostly high school English in Mississippi and New York City, with some time spent on an island at a school for juvenile delinquents. Stints teaching writing, ropes courses, sailing, and "Literature of the Sea"...