School begins tomorrow. One hundred new 8th graders will show up in my classroom. The official title of the class is US History, but the real instruction concerns teaching adolescents how to live. This is difficult, and a teacher must compete with all sorts of noise that diverts the attention of teenagers.
Cell phones for one. Television for another. And of course, the odd desire for teens to congregate at malls and waste their time among baubles, bangles and beads. They tend to gather there in packs and simply roam about. They do not yet understand the concept of opportunity cost. All time spent in frivolity is time that is lost for the better things in life—reading, contemplation and walking alone in God’s creation. Perhaps these will eventually assume a proper place in their lives. But until then the struggle is constant.
I can scarcely remember my own teenage years, lost as they are in the mists of time. I did begin to work when I was 9 years of age, and kept at it all though those years and on into adulthood. I was never unemployed except for my college years, when the GI Bill allowed me to study and read and indulge my senses with little thought about a paycheck. After it was gone I took all sorts of jobs, until on a whim I accepted a teaching post in Costa Rica. I was 36. I had at last found the reason I was put upon this earth.
Tomorrow begins the 18th year of this vocation. I would not consider doing anything else. Besides bartending and playing the Blues guitar, teaching is the only thing I am really good at. Oddly, tending bar and teaching have much in common. Teaching is better, though being good at it requires a great deal of patience. I cannot tell you how times when I was asked by someone what my occupation was, and I responded that I taught teenagers, that the person looked at me with a strange fascination, as if I were a little mad. I am of course—and perhaps more than a little. Perhaps all teachers are.
Last year I was at our assembly that always closes our day at school. In the auditorium were 300 kids, all rustling about, talking and generally behaving as kids do when they are surrounded by their peers. I asked another teacher what it would be like if some person were dragged in from the street and place there with us. Without missing a beat my colleague said, “He would be afraid, and perhaps fearful of his life.” No doubt.
I was once afraid as well. It was my first day of teaching at that little school in Costa Rica. With no teaching experience whatsoever, I suddenly found myself in front of a dozen adolescents. My fear showed, as I had my hands in my pockets and nervously jingled some coins I had in them. But it only lasted a few minutes. I discovered on that day that teaching was going to be a great deal of fun. I have never once looked back.
This new year that starts tomorrow has all the makings of the best of my professional life. But then I always feel this way at the beginning of every new year.
I have been immeasurably blessed, beyond all reason, beyond all comprehension.
39 Comments;
Best wishes for a great new school year, Scipio! Your students are fortunate to have you as their teacher.
I too tended bar for a few years before beginning my teaching career. I found that I actually learned a lot from standing behind that bar dealing with people, engaged in crowd control, watching some adults revert to children right before my very eyes. It has served me well in working with my elementary students.
We don’t begin until after Labor Day, but I’ve spend the summer as a reading tutor, and I will spend next week leading a workshop for teachers in reading instruction.
There is no rest for the weary. On the other hand, if I didn’t enjoy watching children grow from nonreaders into readers, I wouldn’t bother. And then there’s the extra money . . .
Wow. After reading some of the entries on your blog it scares me that you are teaching “adolescents how to live” as you put it. I don’t even know what else to say other than if my children were at your school I would insist they have another teacher – and if that weren’t possible, we would move.
You seem so convinced of your ‘rightness’ that it does not even seem possible to have a dialogue with you. That I’m not Christian and a liberal guarantees that you probably would not even hear what I had to say.
So why comment? Because I could not pass you by without saying something. Maybe someone else reading my comment will be prompted to not swallow what you are selling without at least asking some questions first.
I pray that your year will go well. Knowing that you’re an 8th grade teacher I wondered what it would have been like to have you as a teacher. I was always pushing the boundaries. Teaching was something that I never considered as a career.
I began my career as an illustrator and graphic designer. I did that for 17 years. I’m very good at it and acquired a vast amount of knowledge about fine art and graphic art. Then in 1991, I was asked to teach a watercolor class at a local college. I accepted and at the first day of class I had 12 people that didn’t know how to draw or paint but wanted to learn. By the end of the semester everyone in class was painting in watercolors.
This changed my life. I was able to share my God given abilities, knowledge and experience with people hungry for instruction. I made a positive difference in their lives. I went back to college and earned my MFA. Now I’m a college professor.
I love teaching. It does go beyond the subject matter and it includes life lessons. I believe God plucked me out of one career and placed me in the profession he really wanted me to be in. Go figure, I’m a college art professor, openly testifying my Christian faith and a conservative. You might say I’m still pushing the boundaries.
Good luck with the new year. Your students are blessed to have you to challenge them to think beyond the received wisdom.
I spent time with my son challenging the liberal tripe indoctrination, and it is gratifying to see that he thinks critically today. He is not one of the sheeple that the typical public school education produces. It is not easy for him since he does not share the sense of entitlement that so may public school attendees develop. He learned that self esteem is based on real, measurable accomplishment; not some fuzzy attitude of inherent goodness.
Illigitimi non tantum carborandum.
Best wishes for your new school year Scipio.
Good luck with the year. To teach in the public schools in this current environment truly does require a peculiar form of madness.
I taught college for many years, and then I was away, working in industry for about 12 years. When I tried to return to college teaching, I found that I could no longer stand the students, their sense of entitlement was simply too much to bear. I just retired instead. Now I write books instead.
But I am pleased that you are prepared to go in there and do battle with them. It is a valuable thing that you are doing, and something that they will ultimately come to appreciate very much. It takes a lot of energy, a lot of patience, and an actually desire to fight with them. (I lost that desire to fight.) I hope you have a very satisfying and productive year.
Jim:
What makes you think you are worthy of having Scipio as a teacher? But that’s no reason to take it out on your child.
The power of the stupid is strong with you sir.
Well I never tended bar, but I do love good beer, whisky. As far as a bunch of smart ass kids or Jims are concerned well…………. Anyway good to see you back to somewhat normal. lol. Sometimes I wish I had not of dropped out of highschool, went back for my GED 2 times but had to work. But I can’t complain to much, been blessed by the good Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and self employed for over 22 years. And this might turn out to be one of my best years yet. Resecission ain’t no stinkin, is that spelled right?
Best of luck in the new school year Scipio. From reading your blog I would think that you challenge your students to use the braIns that God gave them
this comment is to “Jim ” above. It is not to be taken as n argument but only for discussion purposes. I have to wholly and respectfully
disagree with your comment that you made. You have a right to disagree as far as I know still we have the right to freedom of speech, one of the problems that our country is facing is people have buried there head in the sand and left the rest of themselves exposed. History can and will repeat itself unless we as citizens do something about it. I know in this day and age this is considered unfashionable,but we as a country better start to pray and ask God back in our lives. We are not dealing with flesh and blood but the enemy of the dark and deep. We have voted for this man to be the leader of the free world, and he has a charisma in his speech, but please do not look at only the word hat tickle us at the time, or as black and white look at the gray as to what he is really saying. Look at his background if you can find one and the speeches h has made on the senate floor. It is time ht we vote out the Poloskis, Reids, and the Kennedys and vote for people that love our country and want to see us reestablish as a wonderful place to live and grow our kids. Thank God for people like the school teacher Our kids need to hear the truth before it is too late for them an us.
sorry my key board skips at times. I am not really that illiterate as to miss and misspell words 🙂
Dear Karen:
Thank you kindly. It looks to be a superb year.
Dear Harry:
You have provided an excellent appraisal of bartending. I especially enjoyed the line “watching some adults revert to children right before my very eyes”—perfect. While teaching I have seen the exact opposite.
I have to work summers as well, though I would rather have them off. Money is the reason. Teachers do not work for money.
Dear Profmike:
“Pushing the boundaries” is something I do in the classroom and out of it. Usually it works out, sometimes not. The problem is always my own foolishness.
Your story is quite the witness! It parallels mine. God chooses the time and the place, and sets His plans in motion for those who will listen.
Dear Geoffrey:
Thank you kindly.
Congratulations to you and to your son. It is not easy to escape the mindset and indoctrination of much of public education.
Dear Scaramouche:
Thank you. I love the first few days of school above all others—and today is the day!
Dear Dr.D:
You experiences have been shared by many. After a while a man says to himself, “What’s the point?” I am not there yet, but there are always unexpected difficulties coming down the road. Eventually one just tires. But there are always young men to fill up the ranks. That’s their job.
Dear Alex:
My drink of choice is Gin and Tonic, but Whiskey will certainly do.
I barely made it through High School, getting mostly ‘D’s and ‘F’s. Probably the school just wanted to rid itself of me. It had already suspended me many times. Besides, I hated it.
Our Lord has blessed me as well. I deserved Hell, and He brought me into Eternal life.
Dear Raymond:
Thank you. Luck is always welcome!
If I can get students to think about thinking, I will have succeeded.
Pssst, Einstein. The Jim above clearly wrote he was ‘not’ a Christian. You missed that, why is that not surprising?
Dear tell:
Thank you for noticing. The error has been rectified. Blame my poor eyesight and the early hour. It was 3 AM when I wrote my reply.
Zowie wowie!! Jim, You seem so convinced of your ‘rightness’ that it does not even seem possible to have a dialogue with you. That I’m not an (ethical relativist) and (am a person who believes in objective truth) guarantees that you probably would not even hear what I had to say.”
Or, in the vernacular, (Latin for ‘groundling’), if you believe thus and such, you must be a closed-minded, intolerant boob.
Not necessarily. I am actually an open minded boob.
Dear Scipio, Were my children (who are all grown by now) to have you as a teacher, they would love you and we’d thank God for a good teacher!
I was struck by Jim’s post, in that he resents your certainty–I’ve experienced that same resentment when dealing with non-Christians. But the fact that they reach out, for that is what he was doing whether he realizes it or not, shows that somewhere, he too seeks that certainty which can only be found in following Him Who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. May he blessed to find that certainty.
Scipio, we all are looking forward to your new school year and what you’ll be sharing with us! God bless you and your students!
Jim, if Scipio is anything like my husband (high school government teacher), his main goal is to get the kids thinking for themselves and learning to check many sources for reliable information to base their views on. If you read this blog, then it looks like you are open to various points of view. My guess is that is what Scipio would encourage his students to do, although with discernment.
Good Luck this year!
Thank God for teachers who bring life experienced outside of teaching into their teaching. They make the best teachers.
Jim–
I am a conservative and anti-liberal. But we have common cause, if you will actually listen to what you are saying.
In my world you would have the same school choice voucher I did, and your child would undoubtedly not be subjected to the indignity of being forced into the horrors Scipio’s class, or any school who saw fit to employ him. . Of this I would enthusiastically approve, even as I petitioned to get mine in to his class.
But I don’t think that is really what people like you want.
All of you and Scipio’s students also may find the following URL to be of interest:
http://tinyurl.com/qq5dja
It bears on the significance of iconography in our present day American politics, and it is very, very interesting. I did not like what it had to say, but I could not disagree with much of it. This is because so many people today simply react to images without thinking but at the emotional level only. I recommend it to you all.
Jim – “Oh how the Godless babble so”…in case you missed it. Sadly, your own worldview can probably be traced back to many of your school teachers.
Have an excellent year, Scip! I know your students will.
Jade said “I was struck by Jim’s post, in that he resents your certainty…”
It is true of leftists in general, and modernists in particular – they not only disagree with, but quickly work themselves up to hating those who claim to be certain of anything.
And they are certain they are right.
The consequences to themselves of such a trail of thought, are obvious and clearly visible – at least it is to those of us who are willing to be certain of what we can see to be true.
Dear jade:
Thank you for your kind words. I work every day in the classroom to measure up to such expectations. Sometimes I succeed, and thank God for His blessings. Sometimes I fail, and blame myself for my weakness.
I have no idea what lies behind the anger of men like Jim. One can only hope that one day he will recognize Christ in every man.
Dear Texmom:
I taught US Government for two years, and loved it! I hope to one day teach it again.
Dear waywardinn:
Thank you kindly. As much of my life experience as I can I bring into the classroom—the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. I do not want my students to make the same mistakes I did. There is no way to do this other than mention my own.
Dear Dr.D:
Excellent video. And I am with you, I did not like what it had to say—but I needed to hear it.
Dear NoMo:
Thank you. The first day went extremely well.
Dear Van:
You are right about the left working itself into hatred against its perceived foes. This hatred acts like acid upon the leftists’ own minds and destroys them, and then ruins their souls. The evidence for this is all around.
The clear hatred in Jim’s comment is obvious to all but Jim himself—to say nothing of the irrationality there.
Hey. “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.”
“You see, in this world there’s two kinds of people, my friend: Those with loaded guns and those who dig.”
Yep. It’s still true.
Dear waywardinn:
And it always will be true until Christ returns.