Mrs. Curry’s Skills Class

This weekend I got into it on Facebook with my friend Joanna over what should go on in a classroom and what should not.  I am loud, arrogant, and often wrong but one would be hard pressed to point out where I didn’t know what was appropriate in the classroom, for children going through the worst time in their lives.  The essence of the argument was the divergence where a child is one person’s offspring and another’s student and the responsibilities a teacher and a parent hold are incredibly different.  And, yes, I’m aware that winning an argument on the Internet is like, well, I still belong in Mrs. Curry’s Skills Class.

The classroom is absolutely not the place to engineer our society; I cannot teach your children values or correct the misguided ones from bad homes.  I can set a good example.  I can foster a community.  I cannot instill a set of values into them.  The role of the school is to empower our future with the skills and tools to explore and learn about their world. 

Jo, I love you and you’re on my top-five list of Helens to secret off to Troy, but we had a faculty meeting about this and voted.  I am right. 

This argument did teach me something important: despite any doubts or misgivings I do belong in the classroom and it’s high time my exile has ended.  It’s not that I can’t sell cars – although my coworkers will point out that I’m not good at it.  In practice, I’m not a shyster and I am unwilling to bully someone into making a purchase.  Anyone who has bought a car from me has made an educated choice.  Leaving the classroom was a mistake, a very selfish mistake. 

The argument rekindled the fire in my heart to be a teacher, and not only be a teacher but the very best teacher there can be.  It rekindled my desire to get out there and fight: fight for my students, fight for my peers, and fight for my profession.  A great deal of being a teacher isn’t standing in front of the classroom dispensing information or worksheets and we don’t just work nine months of the year, six hours a day, and have excellent retirements.  The bulk of a teacher’s job is creating a community and then maintaining that community so that the students can develop the skills they need to take on the world. 

There are a lot of things we’re asked to do above and beyond that like empower them against bullies or instill civic virtues.  There are battles we have to fight, less against their kids but the army of parents who assume that the ability to make a child somehow instills them with an innate sense of what is right for them as well (not you, Jo); and against our colleagues who are there either with the wrong tools or the wrong motivations; and against the student’s self imposed impediments.  Instructing is the easier part of teaching; the nurturing is the harder part.  I am well equipped and expertly trained to do one thing and that is to be a teacher. 

Now, we just need to find me a classroom and install me in it. 

 

Comments

[Margaret]

Amen!! (however my so-called "excellent" retirement is tanking in the stock market right now) My major gripe about teaching is that we are expected to be parents, counselors, behavior specialists, sped experts, etc...Even if by some miracle I COULD do all of that and teach my curriculum too, I have no training in several of those areas. I was and am a supportive, strong parent to my own two daughters and have always worked in tandem with their educators--but I am not willing or able to parent 160 kids.