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.

[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.

[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?

[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.