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Various people have told me for many years now that they thought I would make a good teacher - a very flattering remark, but one I still think was meant sincerely.

I didn't.

I made a lousy teacher. What I've discovered is that the profession of teaching, at least in my brief experience, has less to do with actually teaching people stuff they want to learn or which the teacher wants to teach than one might expect, and more to do with a whole lot of other bullshit.

As my regular readers know, I was teaching at a middle school in the Sacramento area this school year. Now I'm not. I resigned last Friday. It sounds reckless when it's put that way, but the truth is that the axe was already falling and I got out just before it found purchase. Officially, I have "left to pursue another opportunity." Actually, as glad as I am to be out of there, I'm still looking for that other opportunity.

I really didn't like teaching middle school. I liked teaching high school and I'm sure that if I'm to continue teaching, it will be at that level. The thing is that for as crappy as the kids could be sometimes, they weren't the problem. The problem was a sixty-hour work-week for two grand a month. The problem was the lockstep curriculum design. The problem was my fuckhead administrator. (by the way, Blogspot's internal spell check thinks that fuckhead is misspelled [and "Blogspot" and spellcheck too] but I double-checked and it's [they're] right).

I enjoy teaching the kids stuff that they need to know when they enjoy learning it, but, c'mon, who doesn't enjoy that, right? The kids at a middle school need baby-sitting as much as they need instruction, and that's a problem for me. I don't want to work as a babysitter. Either behave as you're supposed to or go the fuck home and ask Mom and Dad to beat you some more. I hate that I have to teach decorum to children who have parents. What I hate more is not having the time to teach them decorum because it takes away from teaching participial phrases only to learn later that nobody else is teaching participial phrases because they themselves don't understand them and they're "too hard." I hate then having to keep it a secret that I taught kids what participial phrases were because nobody else in the department taught their kids that (by the way, a participial phrase is when a verb is used as an adjective, e.g. the running dog, the tanned hide, the infuriating fuckhead).

I had some terrific coworkers. I had some terrific kids. I'll miss both even if I don't miss everything about the job.

Now, I need to find "another opportunity" worth having left my job for.