Find your passion. Damn it.

Last night, I was visiting a few friends at a local summer camp,and we were joined by one of their staff members I have met exactly once. The word 'acquaintance' might even be a bit of a stretch in this case. Back to my story. This acquaintance, I'll call her Katie for the purposes of this post, was discussing her new teaching job in the big ghetto city from her one previous in the boonies. She was so excited that she would only be teaching one subject and that her really hard summer assignment had not, as of yet, been the subject of any student complaints.

I should mention here that this group of friends includes two of the finest teachers I know. That makes Katie's bold assertions that much more embarrassing, to my mind.

Turns out she had gotten the rotten assignment of teaching several different subjects in the most recent school year. One was English and her kids were "like so bad" that she could give them vocabulary "to do" the whole period and they wouldn't do it. Hmm. Really? Imagine that "doing" vocabulary doesn't seem appealing for a whole hour of class. Now Katie scanned the faces of the group looking for commiseration in their chuckles only to be left wanting. Her next statement involved stating that she also taught a Crimial Law class, which could have been really "cool," but instead, she just played "Law & Order" videos everday. Face-scanning for chuckles by Katie. These classes were evidently failures because the kids got assigned to the electives instead of getting to choose their own adventure.

Appalling, isn't it? Those darn kids just weren't interested in copying definitions for hours at a time. Imagine. How does one "do" vocabulary, anyway? Shouldn't a good teacher actually. . . well, teach? Teach by providing new vocabulary in context and challenging students to reach their full learing potential? I'm fairly certain the answer should be yes, I know it is for my friends who represent the shinier side of teaching. Too bad the student didn't get to pick their curriculum--let's make it fun and learn anyway. . .if a student resists, well so be it, just shut up so that they can keep teaching the more pliable minds. And watching Law & Order? Are you effing kidding me? With all of the crazy-ass psycho scary criminals out there, one couldn't be highlighted to grab the attention of teen-agers fascinated by freakish gore?

Lazy. Go.Find.Another.Fucking.Job. This Katie also reported that although she has a stutter, she still chose teaching for a profession because she "had to have a major/job. . ." (Insert hopeful chuckle here) I know without scanning faces that this one gets meager grins, at best.