Scratching the Teaching Itch

In her diary, Wednesdays_Rose asked herself what is her greatest passion which caused me to think about mine.

One of the many things I like about OD is this give-and-take of reading other people’s diaries. It so often sparks a thought in my mind that I want to follow.

My first thought here was that my greatest passion was teaching. After I retired from 30 plus years of teaching the seventh grade to read and write, I substituted for a bit but this wasn’t really teaching, it was actually baby-sitting someone else’s classroom. Gradually, I became known as the sub who preferred to take a class for a week or more which did involve more than babysitting. The best subbing job I ever had was when I had 10th and 11th grade classes for world history for six weeks. Their regular teacher was out on maternity leave {twins} AND the period of history they were studying was Europe in the Middle Ages…right up my alley!

When I moved here to Vermont, I decided I didn’t want to sub here but the teaching itch still had to be scratched so I applied as a instructional volunteer at our local prison. Now this was a strange experience. I had to attend an orientation meeting and discovered {among other things} that I was to bring in no pens with springs {they could be made into weapons}, students had to go all the way back to their cell blocks to go to the bathroom and were not permitted back if they left, and that I have a VERY low tolerance for the clanging of metal doors. The teacher was great and did her best to see that I would have the same students each time, but since Vermont transfers its prisoners out of state quite often, this could not always be done. I enjoyed this for a while because I was helping adults but gradually I realized that I wasn’t teaching. I was doing what another teacher was telling me to do which again, I guess, is babysitting… And those clanging doors were getting to me. It was getting do that I wasn’t looking forward to going out there the way I look forward to going to the library, and since I wasn’t being paid for this, after about sixth months, I quit.

Another passion I have is for learning but I think I will follow that one up later…