I Stopped Making Shit up
November 20, 2004
The application process to teachers’ college is slow and tedious. I have a hard time saying nice things about myself — I’d rather be caustic, witty, self-deprecating. But I want to get in. So I’m giving serious responses to serious questions like “explain what most excites you about a career in teaching.”
Here’s what I said:
I’ll share a secret: by the end of high school I disliked the idea of teaching because I found the learning process mechanical and tedious. High school didn’t spark my imagination. Only in university did I discover my thirst for knowledge and my passion for disseminating it — once I started creating and sharing meaning, I fell in love with the idea of teaching.Posted by Tudor at 11:59 AM in Various Positions | TrackBack
For me teaching is an attempt to fill a gap in knowledge and make eyes sparkle with amazement and understanding. I see teachers as storytellers who create meaning and make mere information fit within a larger narrative. Their stories articulate abstract concepts and clarify them with concrete examples. Because I love stories, I want to become a teacher. I want my students to understand how ideas connect to create a whole. But these connections cannot happen without a dialogue between teacher and student, a discussion that bridges the gaps in knowledge between the two.
Good stories also intrigue us and make us question the world and ourselves — it is this active questioning that creates the ground for good teaching. Thus, I’m excited to become a teacher because I love telling stories that challenge students to find nuanced answers to complex problems. I want to tell stories that engage young minds and fill them with new ideas. This way, their learning will be neither mechanical nor tedious (as my high school experience was), but an ongoing process of questioning and making sense of their world and themselves.
If you’re submitting that on your application, you may want to correct a typo in “question he world and ourselves”.
he = the, I assume
Posted by: Fraser M. on November 20, 2004 at 03:04 AMThanks Fraser :). Yes, I’ll have to edit for both bullshit and grammar.
Posted by: Tudor on November 20, 2004 at 01:39 PMI thought of this definition when I read of your intentions:
Teacher: (1) the vanity of teaching often tempts a man to forget he is a blockhead. (2) one who in his youth, admired teachers. (3) one whose mission it should be not to make his pupils think, but to make them think right. (4) one who frees his students from extreme modernity.
I suppose the first and third definitions are the ones which you ought to be concerned with. That you’ve taken your site off the google listings indicates to me that you must not fall, at least *completely* on the blockhead side of the equation. : -)
As for what is right, only your reason can decide that for you. But I’m sure that you already knew.
With that, good luck!
Posted by: Gregory Shantz on November 20, 2004 at 10:54 PMI’ve been through the absurd process of teacher’s college applications myself. And I can tell you they absolutely LOVE the track you’ve taken. Saying you used to be lukewarm about the learning process and then somehow learned to love imparting knowledge on others is exactly the sort of thing they’re looking for. I said something not dissimilar in my interview at York a couple of years ago, and their eyes lit right up. Don’t change a thing. It sets you apart (in a good way) from the all the dullards who say, “I’ve always wanted to make a difference in the lives of young people and give something back to my community….”
Posted by: John on November 22, 2004 at 03:17 AMGregory, I didn’t realize you had a blog: nice! And I’m truly fond of extreme modernity — I want everyone to find freedom and creativity in that :).
John, thank you for your comment — it provides a lot of insight. I was unsure if it made sense to say that I disliked high school (but still believed in being a teacher). When York calls me for an interview, I’ll be sure to emphsize the point :). Thanks for the advice.
Posted by: Tudor on November 23, 2004 at 01:30 AM