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Jan. 19th, 2004 11:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deliriumcrowThis 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 Most likely out of outdated, terrible books, and unlike college I could not assign more relevant texts and ignore the state curriculum.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.
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.
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no subject
Date: 2004-01-19 08:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-19 09:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-19 09:34 pm (UTC)