2
May
Why Limit Yourself
I have been thinking lately about being a teacher for the thirty year stretch. I have only been teaching for three years and I just can’t imagine myself teaching forever and then retiring. I love teaching, especially when you get to be with the same group of students for two years in a row, but I have all of these other things I want to do.
I want to open a charter school or some school where people higher up are not breathing down my neck telling me what time I can teach which subject. I became a teacher because I took a class in college and on the first day the professor put a blank map of the world in front of us and told us to label nine countries. I couldn’t do it. I was 22 and I couldn’t do it!! I looked around and I saw that there were others that couldn’t do it. I realized that the only reason I couldn’t do it was because of my base education. That is the exact day that I decided I would become an elementary teacher. I wanted to give my students a better education than I received. Little did I know I wouldn’t be able to teach social studies or geography or a whole list of other subjects that make learning worth while.
I want to open a shop. Where I live in Salt Lake there are cute little shops that I love walking into. One of my favorites is called The Children’s Hour. They import a lot of their stuff from Europe. It is adorable and small. Another store I love walking into is a consignment store called Emilie Jayne’s. It is tightly packed and organized by color. I also love small coffee shops and specialty shops. I would love opening up my own shop and running it everyday.
I hate how society sets up life for us. Go to school, get a degree, do work for 30 years in the area of your degree, retire, and then enjoy life. Why should we wait until we are 65 to fulfil our dreams. Why do we have to be what our degree says we are. I am a teacher, but before that I am a person. Why should we limit ourselves to what society expects.
May 2nd, 2009 at 12:34 pm
I have to wonder if teaching would be more like we imagined in college outside of a Title 1 school where AYP doesn’t matter so much . . . I also often wonder where the balance is. We want the kids to read, write, and ‘rithmetic, but are we really doing them any favors if we never show them that there is anything else out there to read, write, and ‘rithmetic about?