Monday, May 13, 2019

Learning

Last week's Teacher Appreciation Day started a long and bizarre thought process.  It brought me back to perhaps the best question ever on the old TV game show "TattleTales."  It was "Have you learned more from your successes or your failures?"

Of course, a few good teachers popped in to my head.  More bad ones came to mind.  Unmotivated.  Bitter.  They seemed to hate their jobs.  Maybe, in a way, those bad teachers helped me more than I realized.  I pushed myself to learn, in spite of having to drag myself in to their classrooms every day.  They might have been failures as teachers, but I learned anyway.

I really do feel sorry for teachers today.  Schools can be joy-less places with paranoia and all that security.  Yes, we do need it, and I get that.  We live in frightening times.  It's a challenge to keep kids happy and engaged when there are armed officers at the doors.

Of course, a good teacher is worth his or her weight in gold, and I do realize it's a brutal profession.  To the good ones, thank you.  You know who you are.