The joy I feel when an alum texts me to say they’re visiting some far-off place of wonder and beauty and it reminded them of the classes we shared together? My heart swells with joy for them, and I find myself getting a little choked up. These moments give me hope.

I know it’s not fashionable to be a teacher these days, and I’m sure someone somewhere is concerned that I am corrupting the youth by sharing with them the things that fill me with wonder and awe. The pay? Not great. The hours? Long, especially at a small private school like mine. The rewards? They just keep coming in, year after year, in the form of alums who are flourishing.

(“Philokaloumen met’euteleias” is a romanization of a phrase used by Pericles in his funeral oration after the first year of the Peloponnesian War, recorded by Thucydides. It means something like “We love the beautiful with frugality.”)