Over the summer of 2008, I decided to return to college to finish the BA that I had started roughly 10 years earlier. I changed my major to English, with the ultimate goal of obtaining an MS in Education and becoming a teacher. I never had any grand illusions about teaching. I know I won't make much money. I know our public education system is in the toilet. The only reason I don't feel my own public education was a complete and utter joke is because of the number of teachers I had who had been teaching for 40 years already, and came from a time before public education was a joke. Most of those teachers are retired now.
Still, there are holes in my education. Big, inexcusable holes. As an adult, I'm doing my best to fill in these holes, but I can't help feeling a tremendous sense of distress that more and more children are being sent off into the world with similar gaps in their knowledge. I can't help feeling I was a little cheated of the knowledge I believe I should have had when I graduated from high school.
Basically, I think the system needs a serious overhaul. I think major changes need to be made across the board in how children are taught in this country. And I think the best way to change things is not from the outside. So, teacher it is. If I have to plunge into the toilet to help pull education out of it, fine. So be it.
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