Thoughts on teaching

Teaching is the strangest job I've ever had. I've only been alive for twenty-three years so far, but currently it's in the number one spot. Certainly much stranger than cleaning viruses off computers, punching tickets at an IMAX theater, or organizing chemicals at a science summer camp. Those last three were in reverse chronological order, for the sake of traditional plot development. Of course, I've also had odd jobs and side jobs and I've shoveled a lot of driveways, but it doesn't matter. Nothing comes close. Teaching is the strangest. Moreover, I would reckon that none of the jobs that I have held or work that I have performed has prepared me at all to be a teacher. I'm good with computers, I can keep track of humans exiting into and out of buildings, and I suppose organizing chemicals is probably a useful skill for any science teacher. But certainly nothing I have ever done has ever prepared me to teach.

Probably the least useful thing I ever did was student teach. In terms of preparing me. Absolutely awful. Worst choice ever, although in my defense I didn't really have too much of a say about it. I'll never forget the first time I stepped into a New York City Public School classroom. The school was in Harlem and it was named after some champion of the civil rights movement. I was amazed. The school was incredible. The floors were gleaming, the lockers and doors were brand new, and the paint on the walls was fresh and clean. The whole building seemed a testament to the successful strategy of educational reform. Oh my goodness, I thought. The money works.

The kids were awful, of course, very disrespectful, but I liked them anyway. Of course I liked them. They're entertaining and amusing, and they made me feel like an adult, which means a lot when you're twenty one years old and entering a profession you are convinced that you are unqualified for. But the biggest factor at play in determining how much I enjoyed that experience was the complete lack of responsibility I had for those students and for their learning. Their teacher was awful. Again, easy for me to say, because I had absolutely no stake in how that classroom turned out. I doled out judgement. I will never be like that teacher. Two years later? Yes, she was awful. But I have a better understanding of why she was the way she was.

You see, teaching is an inherently degrading job, and destructive, yes, very destructive. Because you cannot teach and remain unchanged. And most people enter the profession at such a young age that they have not yet established a firm and stable understanding of who they are as well as respect and pride for their own sense of identity. It is easy to change and adapt and give up part of yourself to fit into the role of being a teacher. No two teachers are the same, because no two teaching environments are the same, however, I firmly believe that all educators are linked by the shared experience of having to MODIFY themselves to fit this new and terribly different situation. And sometimes modify themselves to the point of destruction.

You cannot teach and remain unchanged. You simply can't. The best you can hope for is to teach and become a better person. A lot of it is out of your control. Teaching is a gamble. Maybe the students are horrible, maybe your administration is horrible, maybe your building or neighborhood is horrible. Maybe you're overworked or you're teaching the wrong subject or you don't have the right materials or textbooks. It is a hard job. And many teachers fall into the trap of focusing all of their attention on the things they cannot change, yearning for better times or better people, etc. It is all really quite depressing.

I try not to complain about my job, because I really do like it. Will I do it for the rest of my life? I really don't know. What I can say for sure is that my experience as a teacher, and my goals and expectations for the future, are radically different than those of teachers working only ten years ago. They would probably pass as completely alien to the teachers of fifty years ago. Because the children are different. And the world that we are funneling them into is different. There are no easy answers, and certainly no one-size-fits-all solutions. My advice? Don't forget about yourself. I do whatever I can to make my job easier because it is a hard job and I do not want to wake up one day and wonder where my own life went. It disappears when you're not paying attention. And it is easy to forget to pay attention when you are so worried about the lives of fifty or seventy or a hundred teenagers.

The one thing about teaching that I can say with absolute certainty, in terms of advice, etc., is to never call a student out in front of their friends. I fight the urge to humiliate students who I feel are disruptive or disrespectful. I am so fortunate that this happens very rarely in my current job. But when you call someone out in front of their friends, you embarrass them and you burn any bridge that may have existed between the two of you. Turning the other cheek is an essential skill. I am horrified by the teachers who punish students, not to teach a lesson but simply to reward hurt with more hurt. I try not to judge. Teaching has made me a better person. I am grateful for this, but also dreadfully aware of the fragility of this experience.

This post is unusual because it is not creative writing, nor is it particularly funny or even remotely interesting to whoever may be reading my blog. I will follow this up with a copy of a customer review I recently submitted to an online retailer concerning a pair of wonderful winter-time riding gloves. I'm particularly fond of this review, and perhaps I've taken a distasteful amount of pride in sharing it, but I feel like its style hearkens back to the days of my OLD blog, and reminds me of when I was younger. I did write it at 5:30 in the morning. Maybe I'm younger in the mornings.

Here is a photo of the new motorcycle that I purchased back in January. It hasn't been above 40 since I bought it, but I've put over 200 miles on it so far! Hence the gloves.

Rukka Lobster Gore-Tex Glove

Did you know that Native Americans refused to eat lobsters, because they considered them to be vile and distasteful creatures? At first glance a lobster might look pretty alien and hideous, but it only takes a bit of boiling and some butter to appreciate the fact that it is an edible treat that you can only afford once a year when your mother in law comes to visit.

So too with this glove.

At first glance, this glove looks like inedible garbage. But who cares what a glove looks like? Let me tell you (and foregoing all of my customary hyperbole), this baby wraps your hands in a layer of Goretex, Cotton, and other insulating fibers so thick that you could be forgiven for believing that you had momentarily been transported back into the protective, warm, comforting embrace of your mother's uterus.

This glove is basically a one-way air plane ticket for you hands. Destination? Hawaii, probably. St. Thomas, maybe, although I've heard its expensive. Regardless, somewhere warm and tropical, where the idea of sleet, rain, snow, ice, and sub-freezing temperatures is regarded as myth and furtively whispered to truculent children as a warning before bedtime. Your hands will feel transported, and the experience is ethereal.

You know what else is ethereal? Grip feel. This is where the marvelous fairy tale of this story begins to take a dark turn. I won't go so far as to say that this glove interferes with your ability to control the bike in the same sense that miscommunication cost Hitler the Eastern Front. I'm just saying that Stalingrad in winter is never a good idea. Specifically? Turn signals. Your bike may be different than mine, but it's not, all bikes are the same, you know it, I know it, so let's skip the formalities and get to the part where you're freaking out because you can't cancel your left turn signal while pulling your clutch owing to the fact that the entire tip of your left thumb has been turned into an amorphous blob of protoplasmic inarticulation not dissimilar in form and function to our old friend, Vice President Dick Cheney.

But don't worry, you'll get used to it and adapt. Some of your movements will become cartoonish and exaggerated to compensate. For example, instead of casually flicking your indicator switch you will stretch and contort your thumb over and around the top to ensure complete control and tactile response. This glove yields grudgingly to human ingenuity and in the end, like a well-bred mastiff, behaves more docile during your second encounter.

And who has the time or energy to worry about peripheral losses in glove feel when your hands feel so comfortable and warm? If you're thinking about buying this glove, than you MUST have tried riding in cold weather without it. Which means right now your thought processes are evenly split between, "What does WebMD know about frostbite anyway? It's just a website. The internet can't be trusted. I remember Napster..." and "Maybe I'm just a fair weather rider like my father-in-law."

Trust me, anonymous internet stranger. You are not your father-in-law. And with this glove, you shouldn't have to worry about frost bite until the thermometer dips below freezing. At that point, it doesn't matter if your speedometer is in miles-per-hour, or kilometers-per-kumquat, the number "60" on your dash is going to translate to "numb fingertips" in about 30 minutes.

Have I ridden farther with this glove in colder temperature. You're better believe I have. I'm a champion of all-weather motorcycle riding. I'm the guy that you dream about being. I'm the guy who wears GLOVE LINERS underneath his gloves. Because you know what's worse than numb fingertips? "I told you so" conversations with your mother-in-law at Red Lobster.