I have been wondering a lot about my life. I have been wondering about what I have been doing. I have been wondering about what I am doing now. I have been wondering about what I am going to do. I am surprised that these things don't go together in a package. Maybe they do but for me they have not. I like to think that they are not meant to go together as some would have me believe. I think that for many people they would not have been able to get away from the role that birth had given them if they believed that they were really meant to.
I think I want to be a teacher. I think that by being a teacher I am in a place where I can do the most learning. Teachers in my opinion have the best jobs for seeing the things that I want to see. They have a front row seat to the evolution of thought. I wonder though if I can do it without influencing the thoughts myself. I wonder if I am supposed to. I flip flop a lot on the role of a teacher in a school setting.
I imagine that a core problem of the world is that we ask questions faster then we can answer them. Then we get frustrated when we realize that our time is running out and there are more answers we still have not found. In all actuality all we did was ask more questions, and work up some very in depth theories to the other questions. There is a lot of emotional investment in our opinions and theories. We come to believe them as truth because we know we can not get all the facts.
I have met teachers in the past that have pushed more of a moral lesson than the one in their assigned text. I liked those teachers at the time because it meant less studying. I even learned to look for them later in my scholastic career. However I also knew that the SAT’s were going to be from the book information. Some people can not make that difference and get out of school with head full of opinions and a job at the post office. We all know what a bad combination that can be.
I think I want to be a teacher somewhere else. By somewhere else I mean not in America. I think English is something that I would like to teach. (Note to self: go back to school moron) I think trying to teach understanding in America is impossible when no one understands American people beyond what they see on a screen. Most of our own people don't understand Americans other than what they see on a screen.
I have discovered in myself a pity for America that I did not know was there. I knew about the love. I knew about the anger. I knew about the concern. Pity is something altogether different.
I guess the good news could be said to be that we have not really gotten any worse but only that more information has been made available. The bad news could then be said that we have always been this bad.
I think that by teaching somewhere else I have a better chance of changing the world than I do if I were to teach here. I think that if more were to go to other countries with the idea of embracing their culture instead of having the goal to make them more like us we would have a bit more tolerance from them. Maybe then we can help them to understand how important it is to understand a nation’s people. That is a lesson I would like to teach to America but I am afraid that the competitive view is much better funded than me in this debate.
I wish America could sit alone in a quiet room for a little while and try to get its thoughts in order. Just stare at the wall and try to make a plan based on what it feels is the “right thing to do” without all the people yelling about what “the right thing for you to do.” I wish we had the time. It’s a shame that we can not bring the cultures of our own country together but we can not stop trying to mess with the cultures of others.
