let’s talk about violence.
well, we’ll get to that in a minute.
let’s talk about class, in fact.
for years, i have said that i want to teach. more than twenty of them, in fact. and i am well on my way to becoming a teacher. the only thing that can stand in my way is a small group of powerful-yet-inept people. i don’t believe in group paranoia. they’re not all out to get me. the world couldn’t care less, in general, whether i wake up tomorrow. but there is a small group of conspirators in the faculty of education intent on tearing my life apart by the threads. a subject for another day, though. and there is still hope.
but teaching is my lifeblood, to say the least. other people love chocolate. or swimming. or sex.
they should try teaching. puts chocolate in a whole new light.
the other thing that i keep saying to people is that the age group makes no difference. middle school, high school, university, grad school. all the same to me. subject is irrelevant, too. i’m good at speaking on english. but there are plenty of other things that i can teach. and i don’t have a particular bias toward one of them. this confuses people.
they believe that you get to be a teacher by having a particular subject close to your heart and communicating that subject to other people. i beg to differ. teaching isn’t so much an action as a state of mind.
it’s about being a teacher rather than being a learner. that’s not to say that learning doesn’t continue from birth until death. but teaching is a break with learning being the principle function of life. we humans are learning beings. but there is a point at which some of us say that what we want to do is help other people to learn, rather than continue with the en-masse collection and processing of information, ourselves.
and then we become teachers.
at least, the good ones do. the others become babysitters, whose knowledge is dangerous and whose intentions are self-concentrated. don’t get me wrong. i teach because i love it. but i teach to help the students. those teaching-is-learning people teach because it’s the easiest way to keep learning. and that’s beyond sad.
but why am i telling you all of this today?
today was one of the best classes that i’ve ever had.
that’s not to say that i didn’t cry during the class. and it wasn’t exactly a case of tears-of-joy.
but that’s a whole other matter.
i got to lead a class discussion on the impact of violent video games and media on students. and it may be the last time i get to do anything of the sort in the near future. that’s what was so sad about it. but it did prove one very important point for me.
i don’t care about the subject, the age, or the location. give me a group of people who can learn and i’ll give you a class to remember.
any questions?
Trackbacks