What The Public Schools Can Learn From Hollywood And George W. Bush.

• Author: PETERS, CHRISTIAN

I am a middle school teacher in San Bernardino, Calif.; a small blue collar city out where the eastern fringe of the Southern California sprawl begins to dissipate into the Mojave desert. I have been at it for five years now and truly love my work more and more each year. And just as much, I like the people I work with. Teachers are by and large the most caring, decent and altruistic group you'll find anywhere. Yet one thing has increasingly nagged at me over the five years I have taught. It has to do with my life before teaching.

Prior to becoming a teacher, I was an aspiring screenwriter living in Los Angeles and circulating through the hustling, scuffling fringes of the entertainment industry. During those Hollywood wannabe days there were three people who, in retrospect, embody for me the creative, optimistic, resourceful best of The Business. Far from being the hot shot, Tarentino-esque prodigies I most envied at the time, they were Jay, Mike, and Ed, my co-workers in the wire service room at the hyper-conservative Investor's Business Daily where I supported myself by clipping articles and writing quarterly report summaries. They were like me, aspiring something-or-others in their twenties; Jay from Pennsylvania, Mike from England and Ed from Michigan. They were a few of the thousands of young people from all over the country who populate Los Angeles' west side, toiling in restaurants, video stores, back offices and telemarketing boiler rooms while pursuing their writing, acting, directing, producing, songwriting, or maybe all-of-the-above dreams in their spare time.

What was truly wonderful about Jay, Mike, and Ed though was the way that they would bring that otherwise achingly dull workplace to life. Virtually every morning one or the other of them would come barreling into the office nearly exploding with the story idea, sitcom character, cartoon, or song he'd stayed up late the night before composing. And not only were they eager to share their own ideas, when they didn't have any of their own they would relentlessly pester me to share pages from whatever screenplay I was working on. They were forever on the lookout for an opportunity to collaborate or form a partnership. Indeed, one of the things that made me realize I wasn't cut out for the movie biz was seeing how much harder these guys hustled than I was willing to.

Now, five years later, despite my being engaged in a more satisfying profession with more nobly intentioned colleagues, I find myself ... well ... missing Jay...