Responsible teachers have ruined my life.
It was my many speaking teachers who taught me that when writing/speaking on a topic on which I'm presenting my own opinion it is safest to start by making sure definitions can be agreed upon.
A teacher is any person who has passed on their own knowledge or wisdom for the benefit of a student through any various means such as speech, text, or conceptually through other visual means.
The next part is to detail exactly how my life has been ruined by the responsible teachers who've taught me through the years. To do this I'm going to follow a chronological approach.
Our first teachers, through not always the most responsible is our parents. And I have a wonderfully responsible pair, who did everything they could to ruin my life. From them I was taught two lessons which have possible made my life the most difficulty.
The first lesson was to question everything. Children are naturally inquisitive, any parents reading this will know this as the "Why/What" phase, as in 'What's that?' and 'Why do I have do do that?'. Responsible teachers promptly stamp this inquisitiveness out. My parents not only failed to tame it, they downright encouraged it!
When I asked my mother if Santa was real, she told me the truth that he exists as the spirit of Christmas (not literal spirit but more like the 'joy' of christmas). When I asked my father to explain divine intervention he had to pull the car over and stare at the sky for a while in an attempt to find a way to answer his far too curious son.
The second lesson they gave me which may possibly be as bad as the first is that in life I needed to follow my passions and do what made me happy regardless of money, because as long as I could dream it I could find a way to make it a reality. They taught me to chose happiness over money. Who does that!?!
These two were the first of many teachers who failed me.
Now we move down the timeline of my life through the schooling system, the realm of certified teachers. Luckily for myself and those many students around me society has done its damnedest to eradicate responsible teachers in the school system, and to keep the responsible ones so focused on test scores and pushing kids up through the cracks that they cannot afford to be responsible.
But responsible teachers are a resilient bunch and a few continue to manage to survive. Generally the teachers who I personally can think of which collectively worked to ruin my life had one main lesson they were trying to brainwash the masses of innocent children with:
Ignorance is not bliss, its a bias.
These people taught countless children to not only question the world around them but also to question the answers they received. They continued the dastardly education provided by responsible parents!
Unfortunately for myself my teachers weren't content with simply ruining reading or watching the news, but wanted to go further and try to open the eyes to the fact that there is always another side of the story in all walks of life.
For example in any food establishment it never fails that in the last minuets before the doors close that someone will show up hoping for a meal that a capitalist society cannot help but serve. And while those saved from the burden of responsible teachers are free to despise those people I cannot, knowing that their side of the story might explain that 8:30 was the earliest they could get the entire family together because both parents worked until 8 that night and they really just want to have one family dinner where no one has to worry about cooking or cleaning.
Now I'm in college, sinking further in debt because I was taught to follow my passion and worry about money only as far as I need it to accomplish my goals. I'm majoring in Anthropology and minoring in History and Folklore, all fields I shouldn't expect any money in, because I was taught to question all things and to actively seek out the story of those who have not had their stories told. Worst of all there are even more responsible teachers training me how to do it.
Perhaps now I'm a responsible teacher for having taught you how responsible teachers can ruin our lives.
It's sad that teachers are not doing what they need to do- no, that they aren't able or allowed to do what they need to do...
ReplyDeleteHopefully it will get better, but only time will tell. Until then, we'll keep trudging forward doing what we love doing and hope it gets us somewhere.
ouch, I guess
ReplyDeleteI don't know if my son is being nice or patronizing.
ReplyDeleteBefore he could talk, I spelled w.a.t.t.e.r to his mother and Timmy jumps up and says swim over and over. We knew he was going to be trouble. Divine intervention wasn't the first time he stumped me, but this time he was doing it on porpoise. (yes the fish)