Show #288

Hello Friends of the Garden!

It’s time to fess up! I’m about to retire from teaching. I’ve been a teacher for 29 years. I’ve taught everything from 11 year olds to 80 year olds. I’ve taught other teachers. I’ve been to the State Capitol to meet with the state superintendent of schools to receive an award for the performance of the school I worked at. There have been a career’s worth of highlights. The melancholy feelings of reaching this stage in life are a reflection of the journey.

At nineteen, I met and married my wife and that point in my life I knew I needed to take a good look at the direction I was headed in. I knew I had to work hard to provide the kind of life for my wife and myself that would allow us to have a modest amount of comfort. I worked at all kinds of jobs in my life. My first job was bagging ice. I’ve been a short order cook, a forklift driver, a parts clerk, an auto glass deliverer, a painter and several other little jobs on my path to becoming a teacher.

I honestly never enjoyed school growing up. An unfortunate aspect of my family’s dynamic led me to going to many different schools growing up. The consequence of frequently changing addresses left me feeling a lack of connection and sense of belonging. I always felt like an outsider because I was. School reinforced these feelings in a natural and organic way. I have always felt this way, even now.

I shake my head and wonder how I’ve spent the greater portion of my life in an institution that caused me such heartache in my formative years. After the birth of my son I knew that I needed to do more to provide for my family. My father was the first person in our family to receive a college degree. He always wanted me to be the second. After years of languishing in assorted other jobs, I decided to return to school to the delight of my parents and my wife’s.

I didn’t start my return to college with the intent of becoming a teacher. I had been conditioned to believe that I needed to get a college degree to make the kind of money that would secure a comfortable lifestyle. I started out as an Engineering Major. In retrospect it now feels a lot like those years before my return to college. I was doing something but I wasn’t sure if it was what I wanted. I didn’t know what I wanted! I have never been one of those people that knew from birth that they wanted to be veterinarian!

At a critical point in my return to college I hit a wall. I didn’t enjoy engineering. I only chose that because it was something my father did. The uncertainty drove me to nearly having a breakdown. I was lost. My wife scraped up the pieces as she has done more than once with me and directed me to education. She had herself returned to school to complete her degree in education. We would at least have that to share. The clouds passed and I poured myself in to the task at hand.

One of the last jobs I had before beginning my career as a teacher was as a painter. I worked as an assistant for an abusive, alcoholic Hispanic man that worked for a property management company. Our jobs mainly consisted of painting government-assisted housing. Everyday was awful! I was never fast enough. I was never good enough. He cursed at me. He used foul language all the time when addressing me. I was made to feel inadequate and incapable. Every mistake I made was noted and used to constantly remind me by my tyrant of a boss. I became keenly aware of my own shortcomings. Whenever I finished a portion of work I prepared myself for the critical examination by my boss. There was always a minor imperfection and attention drawn to address the lack of quality. After time I lost faith in myself.

It’s a horrible thing that human nature often has us amplifying our mistakes and discounting our accomplishments! Why are we like that? Why am I like that? My best guess is that it comes from conditioning. As teacher, you share responsibility for every failure of your students. Every mistake you make as a teacher is noted and associated with the performance of your students. When test scores come out for analysis it’s always about how the teacher can improve. Often at these meetings it is mentioned that it’s all about student learning but the truth is it’s more about teacher learning!

Here’s some more irrefutable truth, they don’t know what works for all students! That whole thing about the educational “pendulum” is true. In my career I’ve witnessed it many times. Practices that were once antiquated and deemed unproductive were replaced with “new” ones to address the foolishness of previous perceptions. Those “new” ideas eventually became antiquated and unproductive and replaced by something that oddly resembled past practices.

I believe a popular definition of insanity has been, “Expecting different results by continually doing the same thing!” Naturally, education has turned that on its head with,  “Expecting consistently higher test results by continually changing!” Sometimes I would sit in those meetings and wonder by what miracle was it that allowed me to be a college graduate. Clearly my education was flawed by an inadequate delivery system! It was as if I had to accept and agree that the way I learned was inappropriate for anyone today!

For all the time and effort spent by educational experts there isn’t a lot of conclusive evidence to support their results. It would seem that fortune-tellers could be as good as the experts, just another good guesser! Right now, the trend in education is to allow students to make mistakes and learn to express their reasoning as clearly as possible while encouraging them to find their own correct path. It is a profound irony that the assessment of teachers is done completely opposite of the “best” way for students to learn! Teachers are not afforded room for mistakes.

It is a melancholy feeling here at the end of my career as I mentioned before. I can’t help but recall those days as a painter! I feel less capable about my life long career now than I did at the start! I also have become aware of how I have allowed myself to be conditioned personally and professionally to feel that way. My eyes are opening a little and I’m trying hard to give myself the credit for having done the best I could. That’s a tough assignment for a teacher!

Thanks to some important people in my life I’ve been working at learning what makes me happy. I’m finding out what I like doing. I still want to make the world a better place! I want to show I’m relevant! I’m about to turn a corner in life and I feel a positivity returning. I’m also learning how, with the love and support of family and friends, to be as aware of my accomplishments at least as much as I have of my perceived failures. I’m beginning to anticipate that I can move on. As scary as moving on is, I really like the things I’m doing now! It’s getting better all the time! Look out!

Peace and love to you all!

Mike