I need to keep this short, because there is work to do:
A student is not someone who registers for a class. That is just a person that has paid money for permission to sit in a classroom and get a grade in a few months. A student is someone who wishes to change the content of their mind, who cannot see clearly what counts for improvement of that mind, who is willing to some extent to submit themselves to a teacher and to trust that teacher to assist them in improving that mind.
This is a flexible definition, and the ‘teacher’ does not necessarily need to be a person. Socrates-Plato, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche are some of my best teachers, and they were all dead a long time before I was born. But they enter into a discourse with me every time I read their books. They even live within me to some extent, and there is an apparition of a teacher in my life wherever I go.
Natural Causes 
Write a book. You obviously care about education and not just like average educators. There’s a true longing for evolution. You want to figure out education. No….that’s not exactly it. It’s the reasons maybe. Maybe you’re too smart not to look at the faults and not jaded enough to not want to fix them. It’s like you still see education as something pure in itself. Not a means to happiness but the happiness. Or maybe i’m reading your words wrong. Anyways, you should write a book before you become a bitter jaded professor. I’d prefer this subject, but truth is I really like your writing voice. Confident but not arrogant. I’m curious how you would do with that many words focused on one end. Besides isn’t that what you people do? Write and talk about what you write.
Thank you for that. You read my heart as I like it read.
I hope to one day write a book. I have a hard time knowing where to begin. I think about it every day. I am not sure if I need to be more mature in my views, if I need a writing community, or if the only thing stopping me is myself.
If you think about something every day, it is no longer a wish but an obsession. This goal is no longer a happy thought. It’s a desperate desire, or at least on the way to being one. Most writers have a touch of immaturity. That will only help you keep hopeful instead of becoming jaded. Now the writing community is an interesting thought. You’re a professor. Do you spend time….. are you friends with many other professors? What I mean is, are you spending enough time with your intellectual peers? Do you discuss writing and philosophy enough outside of work? I don’t mean to be a shrink here, but your writing almost …..it’s like your craving new discussions or more challenging ones. Maybe you do need to be in a more intellectually stimulating environme