deliriumcrow: (Default)
[personal profile] deliriumcrow
This is a big part of the reason I am pleased not to have gone into teaching. It's things that I suspected were wrong with the system, things that we had ranted about as highschoolers when it was all so much clearer in memory. How we were really only there to be indoctrinated into the stystem, not for education--hell, it couldn't have been education. I *read* the history ttext books for Christ's sake, and I could point out any number of flaws in it. Beginning with the fact that not everthing our fearless leaders ever did, and everything our contry ever did, was always good and altruistic. It really seemed from the inside that we were just being held there to teach us how to be good little drones. Heh. Turns out this is true. Go figure, someone would notice what was going on from the inside. It's not like there was any really good way to hide it.

So then I deceded that I would fight the system and go into teaching history. Because that was my biggest problem I had with the educational system was the history department. Ok, so I hated the maths and sciences as well, because had they been taught right I probably would have enjoyed them, and done quite well, judging by my abilities after getting out of school. And the fact that I find it quite interesting now. Anyway. Teaching history. Most likely out of outdated, terrible books, and unlike college I could not assign more relevant texts and ignore the state curriculum. Go figure, of course I of all people would consider history to be the most relevant subject--how else does one learn from one's ancestors' mistakes and successes, and how else to know how to overthrow the system the man has in place? So I decided to go for the only other way of teaching subversive history open to high school teachers--English. Make them read about it, in ways that make it live. All Quiet on the Western Front is one of my favourite WWI books. And it struck me deeply when I read it two years ago. Books like that can make history relevant, and make people notice that things happen, and very often not the way the history teachers will lead you to believe. Above all I wanted to try to teach them to think for themselves.

And that would be why I would have lost any sort of teaching cert in record time. So I dropped it. Well, that and the fact that I hate most high school students. I did then, I still do. So yes. Change in Major. I could have taught in a private school, they tend to go for that sort of thing, but that would also be defeating the purpose. They already can afford the best educations and the analytical thought that would include.

SO instead I have no idea how I'm going to try to shape the minds of the youth. Perhaps I'm simply giving up aside from my own children. I don't really know anymore. It almost makes me hope for the collapse of society, just so we can build it back up from the beginning....

I could set up an after school sort of thing, in which children are taught interesting things, like art and craft type things, or technological things. Remy and I could do this, we have discussed it together before. paints, clays, sewing, computer parts to assemble and whole computers to program. I knew a woman who taught inner city children fairy tales as allegories to real life, and how to apply them to their own lives. And they wrote their own as well. Literature as well. Maybe I could still do something. It all depends on time, I suppose.

Date: 2004-01-19 08:46 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] aurra-sing.livejournal.com
I learned more from restoration village work than high school history. DEF

Date: 2004-01-19 09:09 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] deliriumcrow.livejournal.com
Absolutely. Smae when I was doing the 18th century stuff when I was 13. Not only did I learn such useful skills as how one makes candles (painfully easy, but good to know) but I learned why one would do such a thing. And there were so many little people there! It was good to see them all having fun observing things.

Date: 2004-01-19 09:31 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] aurra-sing.livejournal.com
little historical people rock!!

Date: 2004-01-20 08:40 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] deliriumcrow.livejournal.com
They so do! So very cute they are.

Date: 2004-01-19 08:58 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] aurra-sing.livejournal.com
however home schooling is NEVER an option in my opinion. You can always pick out a home schooled kid in a crowd, ALWAYS. it only hurts in the long run from what I have seen

Date: 2004-01-19 09:06 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] deliriumcrow.livejournal.com
Sometimes, in my experience, but yeah. I've seen some nicely balanced examples, and then the crackpots. Besides, I'm more of a community school thing--a few sets of parents get together with their respective children, and teach them various things. Of course, you have to have multiple families.... Or the tutor method. And I think I shall invest in some of those interesting little antique readers, those looked great. So very useful and informative. :)

Date: 2004-01-19 09:34 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] aurra-sing.livejournal.com
the only problem i have with the tutor method is the lack of peer competition. A smuch as it made my life a livinghell, looking back on it, i wouldn't be who i am today and gone as far as I did without it. So I support the community school thing def, but i'm much more of a private school fan.

Date: 2004-01-21 03:05 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] triskaidekafile.livejournal.com
:: blinks :: Literature and History (well, accurate history anyway) each at heart teach the same necessary things - namely an accurate assesment of the human condition and a context to put it in.
Hm. This comming from someone who, given ten years, will either be burning through teaching assignments until i lose my certification for teaching the *truth* (which is always a dodgy thing in and of itself) or giving after school workshops on counter revolutionary terror while keeping my head down.
*sighs*
"Encumbered by idgits, we pressed on."
P

Date: 2004-01-21 10:30 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] deliriumcrow.livejournal.com
And I'm in two history courses that use literature as the textbooks. The two have always been one and the same for me.

And yes, I think in our little afterschool workshop thing, we will be teaching things about revolutions.... :) Good luck whichever place you end up in.

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