Now's As Good A Time As Any

I’m taking the GMAT for real on Friday. $250. Well, whatever.

What if we took all the money out of the public schools and put it into the public libraries, and create a “self-serve” system of education? I learned most of what I know from library books, not school textbooks.

Why am I not a public, urban high school physics teacher right now? This’ll give you some idea.

I was proctoring a test tonight when a big fat fly flew into the room. I started swatting at it, kind of half-heartedly, when all of the sudden it seemed to just vanish. I figured it must have flown out of the room while I wasn’t looking.

After I got home and settled down, I went to put my glasses in my shirt pocket, and suddenly I thought I saw something cross my field of vision. Then I see the big fat fly crawling punch-drunk up my pantleg. EWWWW!!!! It must have been in my shirt pocket the whole time!!!

P.S. I started reading The Fountainhead. I so identify with the main character. I am also so sure that the book was carefully designed to make everyone identify with the main character and thus conclude that obviously Ayn Rand is right about everything.

I was in a hurry to get to class today, so I ate my Sonic Burgers in the car. (If you’re passing through Nelsonville, and it’s Wednesday night, you gotta get some Sonic Burgers. On Wednesday they’re only a dollar!!!) And I was pretty careful with them…I wanted to look professional, or at least passingly so. But I got one stray mustardy onion on my shirt, and there it was…a small, but very bright, yellow spot. I’m not going to turn down free clothing from my mama, but this is why I don’t care for white clothing. The students and I had a good larf, I think, I hope, but maybe they think I’m ridiculous. As if they didn’t already.

All-Music Guide says the Paris Hilton CD is very good! I’m willing to give it a chance. I would be pleased to upgrade my evaluation of Paris Hilton above the level of “worthless human being”^* if such a move is warranted.

^* Not that she’s necessarily at that level now…she just stands the chance to go so much higher than that level that she’s not at: the status or level of worth that I like to call “worthless human being”. As I’ve said before, anyone who claims based on my statements that “Mike Shecket thinks Paris Hilton is a worthless human being” is obviously completely misinformed. I would scarely even think to write the phrase “worthless human being” and the name “Paris Hilton” in the same sentence.

I seriously could have gotten a teaching job. Easily. I’m getting cold called now by schools that have had last-minute resignations. But if they don’t want me, they meaning the Educational Establishment, then it’s their loss.

…am I tired! Two hours at the computer lab in the morning, then probably four hours of working on the old apartment, then three and a half teaching LSAT…yes, three and a half hours. I’m sblounskched.

You guys are making a really good show! I think that’s actually the first one I watched on first broadcast from start to finish (as opposed to reading summaries or watching on the web). Suspense, thrills, weird stuff, high emotion…I just hope people don’t start saying “Oh, but it’s tooooo complicated! I don’t geeeet it!” and they stop watching and it gets cancelled like Twin Peaks before they can resolve all the mysteries.

In other news, my GRE class tonight laughed at some of my jokes! YES! I love making people laugh!

I really think I’m doing the right thing now.

In winter/spring ‘03 I lost my nerve. I was worried that I couldn’t make ends meet. The war also had a real effect: I was anxious and angry all the time and I felt it physically. I was making almost enough money to get by, and if I had just raised my income a little bit and reduced my expenses a lot I could have stayed with it. I succumbed to the temptation of going back to school where I had always had an easy time of things before. And thanks to generous family support, my financial worries went up in smoke.

I hope it will turn out that my going to law school was a good thing, but if so it will be merely an accident. I went for the wrong reasons and with the wrong attitude.

Doubly true for my dalliance with the College of Education. I had nothing but contempt for that institution from day one. I was going for an easy degree leading to an easy paycheck. It turned out not to be so easy.

Though it was never intellectually taxing in the least, my emotions went through the ringer virtually every day. My fellow suckers and I were insulted and demeaned at every turn. We were burdened, Harrison Bergeron-style, with ridiculous tasks and expectations to assure that we really were all “finally equal…every which way” and that “nobody was smarter than anybody else”. You can’t really expect individuals to maintain their unique qualities and talents and still justify a system where the new physics teacher makes as much as the new phys ed teacher, and both of them make half as much as the kid-hating stiff who’s been taking up space in a classroom for thirty years and thus has become entitled to $60-70K a year, plus two-thirds of that for the rest of his life upon retirement.

Do I sound bitter? Yes, I’m f’n bitter. This pathology of an education system hurts kids every day. Maybe I was arrogant enough to believe that I could single-handedly flog this decaying corpse back to life.

So, uh…what was my point? This will work out. I’ll tutor, I’ll teach (or instruct or coach if you prefer), I’ll write. I’ll live simply and cheaply and learn to be comfortable with less. Then, as long as I can keep my head above water financially, I have the whole rest of my life to figure out who I am and what it’s all about. Not a quarter, not a semester, not a weekend, but as many years and as many experiences as it takes to find my place.

There’s a physics job opening at Roberto Clemente High School, a tenth of a mile from the Empty Bottle in the heart of Chicago’s Awesomeland! I mean Humboldt Park! Or Ukrainian Village, if you will.

…if they’d let me teach physics half the day and economics half the day…hmmmmm…that would make that humongous high school in Florida a little harder to pass up.В  In Florida, I’d be qualified to teach either!В  Or both, maybe!

It’s in sunny Orlando…that’s pretty far away, and thar be hurricanes, but at least I have that if nothing else comes along.

Tomorrow’s the first day of honest-to-goodness student teaching.В  Sort of, I’m just observing for now.В  Wish me luck!

It’s not to be more constructivist.В  It’s not to have more inquiry-based activities.В  No, it’s not even to run a more student-centered classroom.В  It’s to not be boring.В  Somebody take me out behind the barn and shoot me if I’m ever boring in a classroom again.

It’s really hard to read comments about yourself, especially ones like: “They should make him go back to school before they let him teach again.”