alright, who broke the school system?

I'll be completely and brutally honest with you. I don't like my job. I don't hate my job, but I certainly don't like it.

Let me explain something - I like teaching. I really like teaching. I like sitting down with kids and helping them puzzle through the challenges that face them daily. I like working with them while they learn to think for themselves and challenge the world around them. I love getting to open their minds to new possibilities.

But that's not what my job is. My job title is 'teacher,' but in essence my job is to transmit the values and culture dictated to me by the ministry of education. I am to come to work and do as I am told and I am judged by how well I play the game. I am an employee of the state: as such I am at the state's mercy.

The point is this: teachers, and by extension the public education system, are not judged on their abilities; they are not judged on how their students fare in the world; they are not judged on whether or not they have tried to improve the world. Teachers are judged on the quality of their classroom decorations; they are judged on how long they stay at school after work; they are judged on how much jargon they can use in a single sitting.

Education (and I would argue this goes doubly for public education) has little to do with bettering the world and improving the lives of our children. It has everything to do with appearances.

Teachers really do care. Schools are not inherently evil. The majority of people working in the system do so because they believe they are doing right. Their intentions are good, but the road to hell remains paved with good intentions.

My wife, who now works in a school, and I both came to the realisation at about the same time that schools are not a happy place. Nobody really wants to be there - teachers are, in large part, miserable and count the hours down. Some, like their students, spend their time counting down the days they're done. In Dante's inferno the school would have been located somewhere around the first circle of hell.

I'm young. I don't claim to have all the answers or be able to fix everything. But I'm not stupid. I can recognize when something is not working and public education is not working. It looks good. It gives the impression that something is being done without actually addressing the problems.

As for myself I'm going to go and teach some students. To hell with appearances.

Happy wednesday from Alberta's brush plain.