Periodically i have a conversation with someone that goes like this:

[map_of_the_world]

them so have you ever thought about teaching?
me ha! no I'd rather shoot myself
Them Why?
Me because the education system sucks beyond reckoning
them its not that bad, it could do with more money...
Me No I mean its inherently flawed, taking thirty kids to one adult and teaching them a very narrow range of things that "matter" is ridiculous and damaging
Them It works for most of them
Me no it doesnt, lots of them fall through, and even the ones it does work for dont actually find out what they are good at, what if someone is really unacademic but really good at something that isn't seen as particularly important, like music, or cooking, or building? the education system should give space for people to find and develop their potential not squash it
Them That will never happen
Me WHICH IS WHY I DON'T WANT TO BE A TEACHER!

Good grief, also there's always an underlying assumption in this line of questioning that what I'm doing is less important than teaching, that just because I'm not a "Teacher" means that I don't teach, and I just want to scream at them sometimes that I have spent most of my professional life rescuing and supporting kids that their oh so precious education system has failed and abandoned


This is not a rant against teachers I think teaching is a valuable, hard, thankless job, its a rant against the education system and the people who think what I do isn't as important as formal teaching.

Comments

[snugglebitch.livejournal.com]

omg, I have had this conversation so many times.

I'm so much more valuable in the position I have than I would be having to design a curriculum that fits within a cog-producing education system.

[lost-letters.livejournal.com]

I'm so much more valuable in the position I have than I would be having to design a curriculum that fits within a cog-producing education system.

so much this, teaching would frustrate me beyond reckoning because I would be able to see which kids needed what support and not have the time or resources to give it to them. Also i find that there's such a classest, ableist normative assumption that kids who dont do well at schoolJust dont work hard enough whereas someone who taught me to be a youth worker and a coherent human being once said if someone doesn't understand what you are teaching them you are doing it wrong

[interfaceleader.livejournal.com]

I totally agree with this. (Unsurprisingly)

And it is so unfair on someone who has no experience of anything other than academia, who has just graduated, to 'handle' a class full of unruly teenagers from every kind of background and with a full spectrum of learning behaviours.

[lost-letters.livejournal.com]

you know I never even thought about that but yes it is so true

[tea-drinker77.livejournal.com]

Yes I've had this one a few times too.

Being as my education was pretty fucked up the system, I'm not going to want to go and perpetuate it am I?

[lost-letters.livejournal.com]

Totally, and its really rude as well. for as long as I've known you the jobs you've done have been really important, just because they are not teaching doesn't mean they don't matter.

[burningmarl.livejournal.com]

I USE ANTLERS IN ALL OF MY DEEEEEEEEEEEEEECORRRRAAAAAAAAAAATING.

Ugh, I feel like there is a veneration of the police, nurses and doctors, teachers etc which while on an individual level it is usually well deserved (I have family members/friends in all of those fields) but it is also used to stifle criticism of the institutions which are often...eh. They get pushed from pillar to post by politicians, they're old fashioned (like you said about teaching, it doesn't take in to account what we now understand about children that we didn't a hundred years ago), they're underfunded, they're soaked in institutionalised prejudice.

I know I could teach but I don't want to, and Beth's parents who are both teachers are of the same opinion of you but remain in the field because they trained so long ago.

[tigerweave.livejournal.com]

If you don't mind me asking, what is it that you do? I got a bit of an idea but would love to understand more.

[lost-letters.livejournal.com]

I'm a youth worker and I spent some of the last year teaching kids who had been kicked out of or couldn't cope with school

http://lost-letters.livejournal.com/tag/youth%20work

[tigerweave.livejournal.com]

Wow, reading the post about the woman "teri" who thought wearing a dressing-gown was asking to be raped makes me really upset.

You are very brave to be able to work in an environment like that, doing the work you do.

My mum was before retirement, a high school teacher. And she would never dream of considering someone who works with the kids who falls through the cracks to be less than a teacher. She always seemed so grateful that some of those kids she couldn't help herself were helped by someone else.

Nowadays she is teaching literacy for adults who feel through the cracks and never learnt to read or write. The stories she hears are so terrible. But so rewarding for her to see them open up a bit and learn a bit of something almost everyone takes for granted.