One thing i learned

If my current job has taught me anything (it's taught me quite a few things, most of them I really really could have done without learning) it's that I now know I would never be able to hack it as a teacher.

I respect teachers.  It's a job that is thankless at times and with a few exceptions is not a very well paying job when you consider what is being provided.  I'm sure I could write a longer post about what level on society's fucked-up-o-meter it is when the people who are teaching our kids to read a book and add are paid like a server at Applebees and the people who are teaching your kids that dressing like a nimrod and getting wasted and locked up is cool if you're famous are paid more than all the teachers they'll ever have.

Anyways.  My main point is that I've found out just how frustrating it is dealing with people who are ignorant and not only have no motivation or incentive to learn, they are not expected to.  I listen to these people day in and day out who are nothing but apologetically stupid.  They don't care that they're idiots because nobody expects them to.  They aren't going to make an effort to get smarter because nobody really cares if they do.  The system has been set up to cope with their level of knowledge.  It runs and it runs, turning gears composed of apathy and profit driven by people who are only interested in fixing problems that only impact their personal being.  Teachers have to cope with students who don't want to learn but they also have to deal with some students that not only don't want to learn but are not expected to.  I was reading this article about a girl working hard to succeed in school and in it it says she actually overheard her dad tell her teacher "it doesn't really matter what she does now she will eventually give up." and that he expects her to fail sooner or later.  If I lived to be 1000 and spent all those years trying, I'd still never be able to comprehend how a father could possibly let those words leave his mouth.  Most likely because my dad didn't see failure as the finish line in life.  My dad sure as fucking hell didn't just settle for growing up poor and spending the rest of his days making himself feel better by rolling around in his kid's failures like a pig in shit.  That's just one girl in one class in one school.  It begs the question, how many other students fail or are going to fail because they won't ever try to succeed and no one will ever care if they do?  Now take the person that has to try and reverse all that.  Who has to stand up there in class and shoot basketballs of knowledge at the rims of these kids minds knowing that the shots are sometimes heavily guarded by the system, the parents, and the students who just don't care about the scoreboard.  (I'm not sure if that analogy is brilliant or insanely stupid)

I sympathize with the apathy.  I'm not really any different.  Most of the time if you've removed all incentives and reasons for me give a damn, nary a damn shall be given.  My frustrations were born from my own unhappiness in my environment and when I sat and thought harder and deeper to the "why" of it all I was forced to take a hard look at my job.  The more I looked and more I thought, the more it became clear that nothing is going to change because nobody in a position to change anything has any reason see changes happen.  In a lot of ways it's a liberating conclusion to come to.  It's easier to cope with stress when you know exactly where the stress comes from and that it's not because there's something you're doing or not doing.  Of course it's also equally depressing knowing that there's stress there and nothing you can do will change it. 

You take the good you take the bad and there you have.... my crappy life.  sit ubu sit.  good boy.