Being a High School teacher is a bit like being a politician or priest. For the benefit of all involved, you can't really bring it up. Other people always fall back on the same conversational pieces - "I had a teacher who...", "Did you see what the paper said about [insert educational issue here]" and my favourite, "it's a noble profession". Do University Professors have this problem?
These banal responses make me wish I could introduce myself as something else - Solutions Expert? Knowledge Advisor? Consulting Instructor? I like that one.
The point, of course, is that it's a cursed topic. Everyone has an opinion which will likely clash with the opinion of the person sitting next to them. How do we resolve this? Like politics and religion, we avoid bringing it up.
That said, I'm proud to be a teacher. There's a part of me that is looking further down the track to other things I want to do, other challenges, but I really get a kick out of helping people become smarter and make no mistake, that is a teacher's job. I'm not there to teach literature alone, I'm there to help people become better people - literature is just a tool I use to do it, just as Science teachers use experiments and maths teachers use... triangles?
Crusader? Oppositionist? I am the flood-break that stands against the tide of ignorance?
And now we come to my point, assuming I can find one. Education is a self-driven phenomenon. I am a facilitator, a conveyor, if you will, of information. I can't force it into anyone's head. This, on some level, troubles me, because we have created a society that allows people to be ignorant, indeed it is encouraged in some areas.
On the one hand, we believe in the rights of the individual, on the other, the individual can be a drag on our society, who many of us would want to punish... OK, I've been teaching Belonging too much, but you get the point. What are we supposed to do with people who don't want to learn? I ask this because I have a student who hasn't taken any feedback on board for the last 3 years that I've taught him and it's coming back to bite him on the ass. I'm worried. I'm helping him all I can, but in the end, I'm just...
An actor on the great stage? An influential thoughtist? A Mind Meddler? A Guide? Thoughtpolice? In the book of life, I'm the extended metaphor?
The truth is that I am all of these things and I'm glad for it. The truth is that I don't care if it's rude and confronting, I'm a teacher. The truth is that I'm going to do all I can to help that student and keep advising him till the moment before his HSC exam because something of what I say might go in and that hope is worth all the anguish and eye-rolling and tooth-grinding and paperwork and mundanity that goes on behind the scenes of my job. In class, I'm a Rock Star. When you're not looking, I'm a Garbageman.
I'm coming to help you all, if you want it.
Johannes Gutenberg, Patron Saint of Education
On September 30, 1452, Gutenberg printed his first bible, having invented the Printing Press in order to be able to do so. While I have issues with his first choice, it is because of this that we can today pluck books from shelves and learn things for ourselves. While not all of us have the motivation to do so, it is a right that should be in the UN charter. No tool for self-improvement is so great as the book and it is time that we recognised Gutenberg for his contribution. Interestingly, he did this in his 50's, showing that it is never too late to achieve the highest hights. Not that 50 is old anymore... As an interesting side note, the Egyptians had a god of Education - it was one of the hats Thoth wore - but the Greeks and copycat Romans failed to achieve this, just tacking it onto Athena as a wisdom thing. What's up with that? Time for teachers to reclaim their divine representation!
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3 comments:
What's wrong with teaching? I think that you're view of it has been tainted by Rhysian logic - I love teaching! Stop picking on me! Teaching kinda sucks...people don't listen to me...It's great being a teacher, you get to help young people develop. Being a teacher sucks, I don't want to admit it...Isn't teaching great? There are two problems with teaching these days: 1. for half the people involved, its just a Plan B that resulted from them not getting the marks to do what they really wanted, and 2. teachers (and here comes the reason why, unlike most Labor men, I am not a fervent supporter of public education) seem to complain more than others about a. their pay, b. their working hours (we are too working full time! (we get the point, you have a lot to do, can we move on?))and c. the public education system. How can I support something that's constantly bitching about itself? That being said, edumacation is at least as important as roads and hospitals and deserves all that the government can give it, but when they do will the rest of you shut up?
That's my spleen vented, now moving on - everybody's got to have some pet hates about their jobs (excpet vets, they just love pets) and I'm sure that when I've finished my degree I'll either be complaining about the stigma of lawyer jokes or saying that public servants shouldn't be seen as "servants", more like "directors" or "producers". So what if people are sometimes a little bitchy about teachers, at least you're not a banker.
Not being a banker is cool.
I wasn't aware that I was bitching about the job so much as the fact that I can't mention it in public without getting involved in a sordid, infinitely-repeated conversation. It was more a 'why the hell aren't you proud of us' than a 'gee I hate being me'.
Also, the problems you bring up are ones I was avoiding, so I didn't explode into rant-mode. So there.
bitching about public perception is still kinda bitching. On deciding that I hadn't ranted enough I posted another one on my own blog. Anyone reading this will probably [read: hopefully] be interested in mine, http://dasubernerd.blogspot.com
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