Not for Teacher

As an English major in college, I have met an abudance of people who plan on going to teach high school after graduation. For awhile there I thought I was going to do the same thing; in fact, if you spoke to the English advisor she would tell you that I am on the pre-secondary ed. track as of my second semester freshman year. Sometime between then and now I've come to realize that I despise everything it means to become and be a teacher. The required classes are so freaking innane. From diversity class to educational technologies class (thank fuck all future generations of teachers will know how to effectively use powerpoint, they sure as hell will nonetheless be utterly incapable of operating a goddamn dvd player, it is in their genes-truth), the secondary ed. program just wreaks of waste of time. I am speaking from experience here, as I have taken two required classes, both involved more busy work than a beehive (har har, by the by, this is totally the kind of joke people teaching courses like "educational psychology" tell).



Though the stupidity of those classes can no longer bother me, the people who take them do. I do not feel sorry for someone who has to drive an hour two times a week to observe a class that they claim "smells bad" and is full of students that cannot read anywhere near their own grade level. These people don't give one iota toward the poverty-stricken students who are forced to spend 40 hours a week in the smelly, shitty schools which are systematically destroying their future and any chance to send the next generation to a better school. Rather, the main thought is something like 'how the hell am i gonna get wasted sunday night and wake up in time to sit and do nothing for two hours in a room that smells bad?' These go-getters, for the most part, whine and whine about how there will be no teaching jobs for them when they graduate. Yes, unemployment looms. Why? Because all our future teachers will be just devastated if they cannot find that job in that school in their old suburban neighborhood. Godforbid any of the people leading the 'children of the future' show a willingness to work where there might be some black people, or some poor people-you know, the places that actually need good and passionate teachers? Diversity class is really doing the trick, too bad they don't teach pre-eds. to be diverse in their level of selfishness and douchebagness.



I could have done something about this; wanted to do Teach for America. Think I would have made a good applicant, so did the attractive man. And yet, I realized that I couldn't risk missing out on that and subsequently missing out on law school. Hopefully as a law student/attorney i will be able to work for public interest/education reform/labor law/anything that actually helps the people who need it. If not, I'm a dickhead and hypocrite; let this post be proof of that, it might very well condemn me in a few years. Goddamn loans.