Grieving for a lost career: My reflections on leaving teaching

If you are reading this, you likely started reading my writings because of my reflections on student teaching. Some of you may have found me because of the recognition I received from Scholastic Magazine for “Best Student Teacher Blog” back in 2009. Others seem to have been sent here by teachers in education programs, possibly as part of your coursework in such a program. (If so, I’m extremely flattered that I was recommended to you, and I apologize that I left my humble blog in such disarray in my long absence.)

When I last updated this blog, I was still in my second year of teaching. I am now about to finish my fifth – and final – year of my teaching career. This is the epitaph of my time in the profession, my moment of grief for a vocation I loved and could not stay in, what happened when I told my students that I was leaving teaching, and ultimately a defense of why I am getting out now.

 

Overqualified

Author’s Note: I’m sort of on hiatus at the moment for various reasons – the main being that I’m in a writing slump. In the meantime, enjoy this tidbit of logic and language.

Recently, I taught my sophomores about qualification – the practice of using certain words to qualify generalizations, such as probably, generally, perhaps, etc. Qualifiers, in my opinion, are eminently important since they are the best way to avoid error (such as suggesting that all swans are white) and still make strong evidentiary claims.

But today I ran into an example of overqualification – that is, qualification where none is needed:

Very few of you [in the audience] has [sic] a coin in your pocket with only one side.

Cases such as this where qualifying a claim would indicate that a logical contradiction is possible show how qualification can sometimes end up in absurdity. No one needs to qualify claims about one-sided coins anymore than claims about being able to draw square circles or be married bachelors. If a statement is tautologous, then there is clearly no reason to qualify it.

 

Logic and inference through song

Spurred by my recent foray into ideas for increasing critical thinking, here’s an idea that I think combines a lot of different ideas, including critical thinking and logical inference, into a skill-building activity that engages a virtually universal student interest: music.

 

A reasonable way to teach logic

I got the latest edition of English Journal this week, and while I have been remiss in keeping up with past issues, I jumped for joy to see this one, which centers on one of my favorite areas of study: Logic and Critical Reasoning. I try to teach critical thinking to all of my classes, and I was excited to see what ideas were included to reinforce this absolutely vital universal subdiscipline.

I am happy to announce that I have not yet been disappointed.

 

Amazing conversations

Forgive me, dear reader(s), for my absence; as I noted in an earlier post, I’ve been busy selling a house (which we sold in only about 2 weeks after putting it on the market ourselves), moving into a new house (which is bigger and only one story), and preparing for where I am currently – the Teaching East Asian Literature in the High School conference at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN. So far, the week has been amazing, and I have learned sooooo much about East Asian history and literature.

 

On planning: Having the right goals in focus

Having kids has given me an acquaintance with health care that I virtually would have never thought possible. My boys are not the unhealthiest of children, but their conditions (severe autism and apraxia for my elder son, slightly less severe autism and mild hypotonia for my younger) have required some further investigation.

We had one of these investigative moments this past year with my younger son, specifically regarding the possibility of a metabolic disorder causing his hypotonia (and perhaps contributing to his autism and global delays as well). To get more clues, blood work was needed to test for the level of certain amino acids and other chemical markers. One of these markers was lactic acid: elevated levels might indicate a metabolic disorder and provide something for a geneticist to work with.

There was a problem with this, however: lactic acid levels tend to rise with muscle exertion, so the blood needed to be drawn from my 18-month-old son without causing him to exert himself while we were trying to get blood.

 

There’s no escape

I never thought that teaching would feel like Freddy Krueger.

By which I mean: It’s infecting even my dreams!

 

It is almost over: On year #1

One of the most interesting years of my life is coming to end now: the posting of final grades this morning marked the near-official end of my first year of teaching. It has been quite a ride, and I have learned more than I ever thought possible. Despite not keeping up with my reflections like I had hoped (sadly), it’s time again to reflect back on what went well, what went wrong, and what went…well, crazy.

 

The “more research” gambit

Understatement of the century: I am an argumentative person. This is no truer than when I am on the Internet. (This strip is me.)

I have been arguing in various Internet forums – message boards, chat rooms, and more recently, facebook statuses/comments – ever since I really got into the Internet roughly 10 years ago. And I have very consistently noticed one trend in the most heated of battles that I feel I must speak out about. I call it the “more research” gambit.

 

Making an impression

I have been frustrated in my first year that I have had very little opportunity to interact with students outside of school. When I have, it has been great, and I have heard so many things from other teachers (or even student teachers, when I was in that stage) about how students respond well to seeing that teachers care enough to see them when they’re not required to.

Last Friday, I finally had a great opportunity to see some of my students in action, under some interesting circumstances: our girls’ softball team played in my hometown (where I currently live) against my alma mater. I knew this was coming, so I planned in advance to make it, and I took along my oldest son (the younger one would have come, but he had just had tubes put in his ears, and it was a windy day).

The reaction of students was awesome – the girls were initially pretty surprised that I came, with one of my seniors saying, “Wait, Mr. B is here? Our English teacher?” And they got to see my son in the throes of a meltdown, spurred mostly by the fact that there was a playground within sight that he desperately wanted to play on. I think that really did bring it home to some of them that, hey, I’m a real person, too. (Class discussions about autism have also helped this.)

And when I returned to school yesterday after the weekend, another teacher passed on that some students had even brought up that I came to the game, and she said they were impressed at that.

Again, it’s a shame that it took so long for this to happen (why can’t the teams here play my alma mater more often?), but I’m glad it did. Maybe this will lay some foundations for the future.

Fingers crossed.