The Teacher's Plight

And once again, I watched the movie 'Wait 'Till Monday,' one of those films that leaves you reflecting on life in a positive way by asking real questions, not the kind of drama that strips away your humanity by giving it to you in the kisser or with a Freudian fling.'Those who do, do, and those who can't teach' is a saying, and I think the teachers in the film have to face that as year after year rolls around. But it is hard to measure the results. Most just survive, I suppose.I suppose I have had the best of both worlds, as I worked with my hands and mind for the first 35 years of life, and as a teacher now, I work with my hands and mind too, although differently. For the time when I worked in factories, fast food, or as a carpenter, I can say that this is truly 'mind' work. I always am offended when students say that they want a 'desk job' so that they can use their brains. Well, believe me, you've never used so much math in your life if you work as a carpenter cutting pieces all day! Even a fast food job pushes you to use your mind in mental toughness to survive a shift and motivate yourself even with relentless, repetitive tasks.As I'm getting older, I miss my youth working out in the open sky in the tropics while holding a large thick sheet of roofing plywood and walking over the slant of the roof in the burning heat. Or my time in the army, starting out with a several-km run, with the home stretch on an uphill slant, followed by a steep hill, when the captain would pull all the dropout's freedom passes for the weekend for those who couldn't make it. I always made it, but the smokers usually suffered, puffing away with their weaker lungs.But getting back to a teacher's plight! At the end of the day, the student disappears, and you're just a paid lackey. And this comes out in the film where the teachers realize they are fools, and anyway, what are they teaching the students? Such questions are the fruitful reflections of school life and ultimately everyone's life.