I used to be a very good public school teacher. I'm not any more. Homeschooling ruined it for me. Let me explain. When I was a kid I wanted to be a teacher. My brother needed some tutoring, so I applied the skills I'd learned in school to teach him like I'd been taught. After four years of college I ventured into the world of public education where I taught for ten years. I improved my skills of keeping 20+ children occupied each day. We did some awesome things. I was good at what I did, but I wasn't happy. Something was missing. God wasn't in the school much. We could talk about sports and TV shows, but religion was on the sidelines.
It's not like there was no religion. I was a midweek teacher at my church, so sometimes I encountered one or two of the students from midweek at school. We had a bit of comradre, knowing we believed the same thing. Occasionally a student would ask me about my faith. The laws of our land weren't so strict against teachers talking about their beliefs in the 70's and early 80's as they are now.
I left public education in 1983 and didn't return until 1999. In the mean time I taught in Lutheran schools for seven years and homeschooled our three children for 15 years. While still homeschooling I began to substitute teach in public schools with the idea that I might re-enter the public school system. God was gone. But not only that, I'd changed. I was no longer able to teach in public schools because I'd discovered a better way. Not that I didn't try to fit back into the mold of the public school system, but it was not a good fit. Not at all.
Thinking back on the tutoring of my brother, I didn't ruin him, nor do I think I ruined the kids I taught in public school. I just didn't do my best. With my brother it was because I didn't know any better. With the kids in the public schools it was because of the system. During the years I homeschooled I found out what good education looks like. I will be sharing my thoughts in future posts.
No comments:
Post a Comment