why i wasn't cut out for teaching.

For a really long time after I made my decision to stop grad school I felt like a failure. I had been so excited and so hyped up about it since I made the initial decision that it made me feel crazy for even considering not just finishing what I started. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I would make a kick ass teacher... I just wouldn't be able to in the world we live in today.

Not where academics are so focused on standardized testing.

Not where memorization takes such a precedent over exploration of content.

Not where the college professors teaching future teachers are teaching us to do one thing then telling us that that just isn't how schools work.

I think memorizing is stupid.  The world is designed nowadays that information is readily available with a flick of the unlock screen on your smart phone. Why spend so much time focused on memorization (except for basic math...) when you can be focusing on teaching kids how to go about finding the information they need. Teach kids the difference between reliable sources and not reliable sources.

Because as I've learned, textbooks are not reliable sources. (Any teacher who hasn't read "Lies My Teacher Told Me" should go find it right now...

So yeah, let's continue to teach generations straight from one textbook, filled with writer bias, as well as Proud to be an American biases, and have students not remember anything 5 years later, and be appalled when they finally learn that everything that was taught to them was just a hoax. That makes complete sense, because giving the kids time to research their own findings and then form their own opinions, is completely trashy.

So am I saddened? Yeah. Am I being practical, though? Hell yea. Because in a world where charter schools are so controversial, this degree would serve no purpose to me.

I guess I'll just stick with behavioral psych. Because there's nothing like going to work everyday and never knowing what type of heavy objects are going to come flying my way.