Taylor the Teacher

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Being a school teacher used to be fun and rewarding. But lately the toll it is taking on me as a learner and as a human seems too great and the rewards few and far between. It truly is rewarding for students to tell me they learned in my class, but this, statistically, is rare. I usually have 1 or 2 come back each year (or send an email from college) to tell me they appreciated how I didn’t baby them and made them work so hard in my class. I really do love hearing that.

But I’m beginning to wonder if the students in question wouldn’t have learned anyway, without my help. If they’d been outside of such a hardened school regime, they could have gone much further. And what of the negative consequences of turning the rest of the students into lock-step, how-high-sir automatons?

I got into teaching because I believe in the power of education to free minds and because free minds are crucial for a healthy democracy. But I’m really wondering if the public schools aren’t a major part of the problem rather than being part of the solution. Am I helping the system to lock down minds rather than free them?

If that’s the case, I’d rather sell insurance.