English teachers beware

It's been awhile since I've signed into my blog, and now that I have given up facebook, I intend to spend more time writing. I found this draft from last summer sitting in my dashboard. One year later, I still feel it is very relevant to the crazy world of public school teaching.

Here’s the thing: I think I’m a bad teacher. I don’t want to be a bad teacher, but I decided I must be because I could not answer the following question posed by a bunch of English teachers: How do historians use writing?

Um...to express ideas?

In truth, I’m not sure it is different from other disciplines, other than the obvious:

1. it is actually interesting

and

2. it has no bias (ahem).

Here’s my secret on why I wanted to be a teacher. It was not to ponder questions such as the one above. I wanted to be a teacher because I thought teachers were role models and, here’s the crazy bit, I fancied myself a good role model, especially compared to the World At Large. I vote, I recycle, I work hard, I balance out my daily People.com reading by corroborating what’s covered on the Washington Post with the BBC. I own an electric toothbrush. I’m not an asshole. Most of the time.

Then I worked for a few years and decided that I had to be a teacher because I could not handle working with adults (usually I try to express this in the positive by saying I like working with kids). Adults are maddening; kids are also maddening, but they have the excuse of being 14 years old. Adults are just assholes (But I’m not. Usually. See previous paragraph).

What I understand now is that the world of teachers is driven by adults, not the 14-year olds sitting in your classroom all day. These adults gather in groups to talk about big questions and create action plans. We force the world of adults on children when all they want to do is sleep later and have Coke and Doritos for breakfast.

I do not expect my kids to become historians, and therein is my flaw: I just want them to think about shit (can I get that on a T-shirt please?) and try to see that the world is the way it is for a reason (or many, as it were). My expectations are too low. The guilt weighing upon me is intense in a way only a lapsed Catholic could appreciate.

So, where to go from here (“Mary’s Summer Action Plan”):

1. Think of ways to get my kids to write more, which admittedly is needed and is important to me.
2. Limit reduced-fast Triscuit intake to 2 servings a day.
3. ....

Surely I'll come up with something else.