NYCTF articles we have to read...

Some more on the NYCTF interview process.

We were given two articles to read.

The first article (available here) was a hit piece on the NYCTF program and on teaching in NYC in general. Don't bother reading it. I'll sum it up for you: TEACHING IS AWFUL! DON'T DO IT! YOU'LL END UP CURLED UP IN A FETAL BALL, CRYING, CURSING MANKIND....

... that was the basic gist of the article.

I'm not going to say that I think teaching will be easy. I'm positive it will be absolutely strenuous and it will take years ... YEARS ... to really figure out what the hell I'm doing. That said, I think the subject of this article was, oh .. I dunno .. perhaps a little too emotionally unsound to be going into teaching, and maybe a little nutter-butters? Some people just aren't meant to teach -- she strikes me as one of those people.

But I shouldn't let hubrous get the best of me. This is all like someone without kids saying, "What's the big deal? Raising kids is easy!" I could very well end up curled up in a fetal ball, crying, cursing mankind. And when I do, I will absolutely link back to THIS post as proof of what a moron I am.

The second article (available here) is the exact opposite. It's all about how teaching is inspirational and wonderful and, though full of setbacks and various ebbs-n-flows, is just like in the movies, and you're Michelle Puh-Feiffer.

Neither of these articles is overly illuminating. I wonder why people think that, in trying to hash out an issue, putting up to extreme examples of thoughts on that issue is a good idea. Teaching is likely neither of these two things, but somewhere in the middle.

I'm guessing, based on these articles, there's going to be some group discussions at the interview where we have to talk about the hardships of teaching and how we think we'll deal with them, etc. I'm feeling pretty good about having to have a discussion about that, especially with the chance that I may be having it with a bunch of young'ins who've never been out from under Daddy's waistcoat, haven't worked full-time while going to school at night, haven't budgeted their expenses, paid rent/mortgages, planned a wedding, and on and on and on.

Ewww .. that came off as a little snarky. But really, i think that to a 23-24-25 year old, teaching will seem brutle and unbearingly strenuous.

That's all for now -- next big date is just around the corner. I find out on Monday if I advanced to the in-person interview stage for Teach for America.

And now, a word from the Devil's Advocate:

I'm so hopped up on the idea of teaching, so I thought some good devil's advocate thinking would be useful. I've tried talking to lots of friends and family, but have gotten nothing but supportive "Oh! You'd be a great teacher!" sort of responses -- not quite the grappling opposition I was hoping for.

The wife has been the most devil's advocate-ey, though also overwhelmingly supportive -- she's awesome.

I thought it would be a good exercise to list out as many reasons as possible why it would be a bad idea for me to leave my computer career and go into teaching in NYC. I'm not saying all of these are real, practical, or even in the realm of probable worries one should have. It is really a list of any fear that has crossed my mind, if even for a split second.

In no particular order:

1. Despite my valiant efforts at budgeting and my planning before hand, the huge cut in pay will cause me to not be able to pay my mortgage, or my utility bill or some other such important thing
2. The kids that my wife and I will have, at some point in the not so distant future, will be lacking in basic crap because I'm not making enough money
3. Money woes will cause stress between The Wife and me
4. Teaching will be awful, and I'll hate it and I'll quit after the first year, or even after the first month
   
5. I'll get stuck in a school where the kids are all monsters, and will end up not reaching a single damn one of them and the whole exercise will be a huge waste of my time
6. I'll get put in a bad neighborhood and end up getting stabbed outside of the school
7. While on the mend from that first stabbing, I'll then get stabbed inside the school
8. In a poetic example of Karma, a kid in one of my classes will throw a potato at me while my back is turned to the class (remind me to tell you more about that one some day)
9. The teacher's pension that I'll be relying on will go bust after I've put in 19 years and I'll end up retiring to a home for poor old white mother F-ers
10. Teaching will be awful, but my stubbornness will prevent me from quitting and I'll end up being a bitter, nasty-ass teacher.

OK -- that's really all I could think of. Really not all that bad, eh?

Great quote...

Came across a great quote by H.L. Mencken about teaching:

"The essential difficulty of pedagogy lies in the impossibility of inducing a sufficiency of superior men and women to become pedagogues. Children, and especially boys, have sharp eyes for the weaknesses of the adults set over them. It is impossible to make boys take seriously the teaching of men they hold in contempt."

Very nice.