Teaching.....

I am a teacher. I am a polisher of stones and have been for over 25 years that have spanned several decades. My story has changed, but not as tremendously as the stories of my students. The students of today both resemble and are polar opposites of the students of my first classroom. That year was 1973. I was fresh out of the University of Texas at Austin and had returned to my home town of Hamilton, Texas to begin my career. I have dealt only with teenagers and have loved every minute of every day. They are rolling rivers lapping on the shores of discontent one second and supreme happiness the next. They are all my kids. I have often reflected on my many years of teaching, from both sides of my desk. The pressures of yesterday, dim in the light of today. What seemed like state of the art teaching in my first years, now barely flickers as a candle. We were not blessed with the vast technology that looms large in any classroom of today. But yet, in that time, long ago, we were able to better know our students. We spent more quality time with them. We taught much more than our subject matter. Today, we lead them down the path set by the great State of Texas. We, for the most part, are told what to teach and when to teach it. And at the end of the day, we are separated from our students by this instruction. During my years as a teacher I have taught both in the regular classroom and also been part of two Alternative Schools, the first being a disciplinary school and the second being a school for rapid academic advancement. I have seen and touched kids with tremendous potential and backing and also cried over kids with little or no guidance. I have loved them all. I have taught them all. And I think my most vivid memories and reflections stand in the pool of non-instruction. I am a polisher of lives. I take this role very seriously and even though today, we have less time to mold our students in anything other than subject matter, a good teacher will make the time to step outside the box of history, math, English or science. We will lend a hand, hear a word, listen to a sigh or a laugh….and all the while we are being degraded by parents, politicians and the general public. We are paid too much, care too little and generally do our job with little or no passion. This, my friends, appears to be the perception of teachers. Allow me to invite you to walk my path. I deal with students of today who live in a pressure dome that exceeds those of most adults and they begin this road while too young to even realize that they are running on a hamster wheel. We set our kids up for burnout at a very young age. They are put in classes and sports before they are school age. They must excel, succeed, outdo…at any cost. They are not only encouraged, but at times, forced to be the top. The top ten percent gets you into colleges. The top athlete has a chance for scholarships to universities. They are force fed numbers and statistics long before they have even a fraction of the knowledge they need to decipher what it all means. And they live a life of fear of disappointing parents, teachers, or coaches. The saddest part of all of this is that they know no different. They have never been that child who wakes up to long stretches of days and allowed to just be. It has long been my belief that every person will be a kid at some point. This will come possibly at 8, or 15, or 25, or later. At some point, the cap will come off the bottle of soda and spew immaturity and irresponsibility in every life. And this is how it should be. The sad part is that most of today’s kids are not allowed that release until well into adulthood. The tragedy is that then, when the wheels fall off, it damages more lives than just theirs. Now, we are expecting students to set their high school paths before they even enter the doors. We offer this route, and that route, and you must carve in stone your entire adulthood before you get your driver’s license. We force feed decisions on not only students, but, also their parents to map out career paths of 15 year olds. I wonder if future generations will be encouraged to apply to universities before middle school? It is a ‘never enough’ world. And because of this, I see burn-out in the eyes of my students, along with braces, and casts that try to heal young bodies of the rigors of pushing too fast, too hard and too far. So, I must ask you and myself. What is to be learned? Maybe nothing, or maybe an entire book of knowledge that is set before us and we can choose to either read the pages or close the book and set it on the highest shelf of ignorance. I am a teacher, because I love your kids with all their joy, and tears, and idiosyncrasies and failures and successes. I am privileged to be a part of all that is them. I will take your complaints and your condescending remarks and your judgments, because at the end of the day, when I see a former student who comes up to me and thanks me for my rules and lessons taught, at that very moment, I couldn’t care less what anybody says. I have my reward in that hug, and those words.