What if?

I've had a weird, very strange week. I'm shocked at how quickly substitute teaching has taught me that I definitely want to be a social worker.

I taught math, history and Spanish at the high school. I'm not sure what happened, but somehow I have ended up channeling all the worst teachers I ever had when I work at the high school. I'm mean. I won't let them make a noise. I send them to the vice-principal for voicing opinions. As a result, they hate me. Of course they do. I would hate me, too.

Then I went and taught third grade and elementary p.e. the second part of the week. Those kids adored me. They hugged me and told me I was the best teacher ever and begged me to come back. Whoo, what an ego rush!

What did I do different? I realized that I really was channeling every bad teacher every where, and I changed. I told the third graders that I hate a quiet classroom (which I do.) I let them work together and I let them talk about their work. I played games with them and generally was not as uptight as I was at the high school.

In short: I wasn't afraid of them.

Anyway. Why has this taught me that I don't want to be a regular classroom teacher? Because I could so easily see the progression from eager, curious learners in kindergarten and kids in the third grade who are already losing their ability to think independently. I actually feel sick to my stomach about sending Ruby to school. So I think I won't.

At home, Nick is studying Anne Frank and the Holocaust. I'm struggling to let go and let him do his own thing. It is so hard to resist the urge to micromanage his education and trust that he'll want to learn something if I'm not riding him every minute. I'm trying though.

I'm reading The Teenage Liberation Handbook by Grace Llewellyn right now and it's amazing. Here's a question. What would you have done if you could have dropped out of high school and done anything you wanted to do with those years? Me? I would have trained for the Olympics, I would have written a novel, I would have taken some college classes. I would have been happy and maybe not had an ulcer when I was still in school.

What about you?