But now I feel the need to confess. All joking aside, this has been weighing on my soul, a dark shadow, a cold anchor, for years. I have lied to cover this up more times than I can count, and I don't like it: I want to be honest and forthright in this, as I am in almost everything else I do. For a man who tells both his high school English students, and the world at large through these blogs, of all of my assorted sins and embarrassments and faults and vices, this has really been the one thing that I haven't been willing to admit, to cop to. Which means, of course, that it is the one thing that I most need to tell everyone who is willing to listen. So here goes.
In the interest of full disclosure, all of that, which I made reference to in the first paragraph, was this: I stole money from my mother. I don't remember how much, a few hundred dollars, which I frittered away on totally useless things like clothes and food at IHOP. Not the worst thing I did to my parents when I was a teenager, but certainly the most shameful. But back to the original confession.
Ready?
I don't believe in God.
No wait: that's not it. Everyone who knows me already knows that. And as confessions go, it ain't that much of a sin; even the faithful have doubts. That's part of the idea of faith. Though I have to say: people that think faith must be placed above facts, that belief is more important than knowledge, are not only true and complete idiots, but dangerous, both to our world of empirical facts and scientific truth, and also to their faith, which they turn into an illusion that can only harm, never help. What could a true Fundamentalist do for you? Nothing but pray, of course, because anything else would have to rely on something other than perfect faith in God's will. Would these people even bring food to a hungry neighbor? Help rake up their elderly relative's leaves? Or would they just pray for God to intervene, all the while continuing to deny that anything other than faith is needed to survive in God's creation? If you need help, you're much better off asking an atheist: we're actually very nice people, once you give us a chance.
No, that wasn't what I wanted to confess. What I wanted to confess is this: Some day, I plan to start smoking again.
No, no -- that wasn't it either. It's true, though: when one of two things happens, either cigarettes are made, if not healthy then at least not particularly harmful to one's health, or when I stop caring whether I live or die -- you know, after I celebrate my 100th birthday, when my robot body is all ready to receive my brain after my human body's cessation, after I've already won the first Nobel Prize for Fantasy Literature -- then I plan to grab me a pack and some matches, and smoke my lungs black. That dream was one of the thoughts that made it possible for me to quit, honestly; because even though I didn't want to be a smoker any more, there were too many things about smoking that I always enjoyed: the solitude, the quiet, the smell and the sight and the feel of it. I also liked being a bit of a pariah, and I hope to achieve that once more when I am an old, unhealthy man, lighting up those (by then, one presumes) anachronistic cancer sticks. If it isn't too shocking, I'll also admit that, if and when marijuana becomes legal to smoke, I'm going down that road too. With a great big smile. And that one isn't waiting until I'm old and indifferent, either -- though I absolutely plan to be stoned silly when I am those things, again for the shock value. I've always wanted to be a cranky old man sitting in his rocking chair on the front porch, yelling at kids to get off his lawn; imagine if I could do that while giggling and holding a massive spliff. Now that's an image.
All right, all right, enough already. I really wasn't trying to delay this confession, just following the path of the words, which almost always takes twists and turns betwixt thoughts and fingertips. I don't think I was delaying, at least. Of course, the subconscious is a funny ol' place, and mine has very definite ideas about the rightness of airing out this particular pile of laundry, so maybe I was trying to put it off, after all. But any more attempts to divert would become labored, maybe even dull, and that can't be allowed.
I don't like my job.
There, I said it. And as funny as it is, even though I've been thinking about this particular piece for a while now, and even though many of my intimates already know of this dark secret of mine, I still felt a little sigh of relief in my chest as I wrote that down, knowing I am going to post this on the web for all and sundry to see -- knowing that I have some colleagues and some students who read my writing, and some students' parents who will read this and possibly even take umbrage at it. Though I dunno: after all the offensive crap I've put on these pages in the past, doesn't this one pale in comparison?
Actually, no, but that's precisely the reason I'm saying this. Because my job is not one that people are allowed to dislike. I am a teacher: in our society, in our system of mores and unwritten rules, that means I must believe, and I must love. I must love children. I must believe they are our greatest gift, our most important resource -- that isn't limited to teachers, of course, because everyone in America has to put the children first, and use them as an excuse to justify any extremity of stupidity, intolerance, short-sightedness, or selfish egoism. But we teachers have to feel it even more, because after all, we are the ones who turn the country's children into good and productive and moral citizens -- the definitions of all three modifiers there being open to eternal and vituperous debate, of course. Because I am a teacher, I have to love what I do -- because nobody would do what I do without loving it. It's too hard, it's too frustrating, it's too underpaid and underappreciated for anyone to take on without a true passion for the work, or at least for the ideals that underlie the work, ideals that are never allowed to slip very far from the forefront of our minds, as we are inundated, every second of every day, with cliches and truisms and maxims about the vital importance and the glorious honor that accrues from what we do.
Want some examples? Let me just reach over to the book that sits on the shelf just behind my right shoulder: Teaching With Fire: Poetry that Sustains the Courage to Teach. How about this, the closing line from "I Care and I'm Willing to Serve" by Marian Wright Edelman:
"Use me as Thou wilt to save Thy Children today and tomorrow, and to build a nation and a world to where no child is left behind, and every child is loved and every child is safe."
No pressure there. Notice the references both to God and to our government's educational policy, and notice that the capitalized Children are equated with the infinite Creator, and the ideal goal of our nation's public school system is equated with love and safety for every child. Does that give you some idea of how hard it is to not like what I do? How about this, from "Children Will Listen," by Stephen Sondheim:
Careful the things you say,
Children will listen.
Careful the things you do,
Children will see.
And learn.
Children may not obey,
But children will listen.
Children will look to you
For which way to turn,
To learn what to be.
Careful before you say,
"Listen to me."
Children will listen.
And there it is: children will not obey me, but they will still look to me for which way to turn. And yet, nobody ever seems to see the contradiction in that. But in essence, that is precisely why I dislike my job. Before I get to the meat of my confession, let me throw out one more quote, from the lead-in to the book's first chapter, "Hearing the Call."
It is a serious matter to ask, Why do I teach? We don't come to teaching to punch the clock or count the dollars. Most of us come to teaching to answer a summons or bidding that commands us to do this work. We are drawn to teaching by our passion for our students and love of our subjects -- and by our belief that connecting students to potent ideas will yield great things. We are drawn by a sense that we can make a difference in a child's life, in our world, and that engaging in such meaningful work will be cause for great personal fulfillment.
-- Sam M. Intrator and Megan Scribner
And there it is, right there. The reason that this piece, these words of mine, are a confession, rather than a simple and rather humdrum statement of fact, the admission of a feeling shared by millions and millions of people who don't particularly like what they do for a living. Because I came to teaching to punch the clock, and to count the dollars. The two reasons I became a teacher were because I thought it would pay about as well as I needed it to -- well enough to keep myself and my wife housed, clothed and fed -- and because I thought it would give me enough time off to do what I have always wanted to do, which is write. And I have stayed in this profession for ten years, and will stay in it for several more, because that is exactly what it has given me: enough time off, and enough money.
I don't do it for love of my subject. I do indeed love English, both as language and as literature, and the ability to explore the written word and its meaning has been one of the perquisites of the job, but if I could do that same exploration "all by me onesy," to quote Captain Jack Sparrow, I would much prefer it. Because my experience of English in a classroom setting has been filled with far more frustration than delight, as I watch class after class, year after year, sleep and dawdle and scoff their way through the literature that I so enjoy. I know that I have sparked some love of literature in past students, and fanned the flames for more, and that makes me happy. But it isn't worth the number of times that I have heard a teenager tell me that one of the finest stories ever written, Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, was boring and confusing, and they didn't read it.
I don't do it for love of the children. I don't like children. Did I imagine the gasps of shock and outrage as I wrote that? I don't think so; I think it was the sound of our zeitgeist recoiling in horror from those words, coming from me -- from a teacher. Because everybody loves children. Everybody, and especially those who choose to work with them for a living. We love their innocence, and their fresh faces, and to watch them explore and learn about their world, in which everything is brand new and still shiny and wonderful. Everybody loves the little children.
Bah. I don't. I don't have a problem with them in the abstract, I just don't want them in my life. They don't read the books I read or watch the movies and serials I watch; they don't play the games I play (or at least they don't play them as I do), they don't enjoy my hobbies, they can't carry their end of an interesting conversation -- unless I wanted to talk about Spongebob, or what you can find under a pile of rotting firewood, or, as with my students, how gay it is when you're forced to do boring stuff like read books. But I don't: I want to talk about our society, and the way people think, and what art is, and beauty, and whether evil can be named, described, categorized -- and then eliminated, or enjoyed. Find me the kid who can discuss those things. I teach high school English because I knew, and experience has confirmed, that the older the kid gets, the closer he gets to being interesting; I have maintained and enjoyed contact with several ex-students because they are now grown up and therefore worth my time. But the majority of my students are not, and if it weren't my job to do so, I would never spend time with 95% of them.
Hence, my confession, for this is a sin. In the eyes of our society, I am wrong to feel this way. It has been difficult for me to accept my feelings, because I have been surrounded by people who feel -- or at least, who purport to feel -- as the book says we should. Though I have also noticed that my fellow teachers are fairly damned protective of their paychecks, their benefit packages, and especially their free time away from work, all of which makes me wonder: am I really the only one? Am I even a rare case? Or is this entire thing, this entire concept that teachers love what they do, nothing but a few inspiring examples and a whole lot of smoke and mirrors and lies? I doubt it; I do think that most people in teaching have a love for both their subjects and their students, even if they also enjoy their summers off and their paychecks.
A brief word about those paychecks: they're really not that bad. Sure, it would be great if teachers were paid more; we work pretty hard -- some of us work exceptionally hard -- and there is not a lot of room for advancement. We also have to take quite a ration of crap from our fellow citizens, who blame us, castigate us, insult us, suspect us -- and then hand over their precious children to us and expect us to raise those kids for them, while they reap all the rewards. Some people may bewail their ungrateful children who do not care for their aged parents (This is the most common objection people raise to my choice not to have children of my own -- who will take care of you when you are old? [Along with the even more ridiculous, "Who will carry on your family name?" Why the heck would anyone think -- sorry if this offends you, Dad -- that Humphrey is a name that needs to continue on Earth?] My answer: when I can no longer take care of myself, if I can't pay someone else to do it with at least a modicum of dignity, why would I want to keep living, anyway?), but nobody, ever, expects former students to take care of their aged teachers. This is why people believe we teachers have to love children and love teaching them; because everyone knows the other rewards are just not good enough.
And they're not, not for most people. They work for me because I have other goals and other interests, and I have a family life that is small enough to be supported by the reasonable-but-not-generous salary I receive (I should also note that it has taken me ten years to get to the point when I can support my family without having to do extra work in the summer, or my wife having to worry about bringing in a paycheck in addition to her freelance illustration income; this is the real reason that teachers should be paid more. Because we simply aren't paid enough to survive as middle class citizens in this day and age -- and, like all fully-employed college-educated white-collar workers, we should be.). Obviously, I enjoy the job enough to keep doing it, or I would have joined the 40% of teachers who quit the profession in the first two years. There are rewards other than the financial ones, and I enjoy them, but they are not the rewards that appear to motivate my colleagues.
Those rewards, the expected joy and fulfillment that everyone seems to think I should feel because I get to spend my time with children, because I get to make a difference (I cannot tell you how tired I am of that cliche. It is second only to the despicable "there for me," as in, "I love my parents because they are always there for me," in its insipid non-specific pointlessness. If I shot everyone I saw in the big toe, that would "make a difference." If one follows the logic of the usual cliches -- that everyone can make a difference and does make a difference, even if it is in some small unintended way, by thought or word or deed -- then by killing myself, or withdrawing myself completely from the society of others, I would make a difference, because I would no longer be there to make a difference in the lives of those I would have touched, which would, of course, make them -- different.), are, as it turns out, the biggest problem I have with my job. I could stand the frustrating students, I could handle the constant criticism and armchair-quarterbacking that comes from the government and the general public, I could shrug off the specific flaws in the public school system, a thousand times easier if only I didn't feel guilty. Because I do feel guilty. I am surrounded by people who talk about their love of teaching, their love of students, how inspiring and uplifting the job is -- and I can't stand to say that I am only in it for the money. I can't stand to say that I don't particularly like what I do. So I lie, and say that I care about those things, that I like inspiring students, that I enjoy helping to make this society a better one, that I like -- gulp -- making a difference. I like most of my fellow teachers, and I don't want to burst their bubble, nor cast any doubt on their sincerity; so I lie. More practically, I have been forced to lie in order to get the two teaching positions I have had; nobody wants to hear that an applicant is only there for the money and the time off, and in education, such a motivation in a candidate would be cause for offense and remonstration, not merely a rejection. So I have lied, in every interview and every application, saying that I teach because I believe that children are the future, and I wish to be the torch that lights their way to knowledge and self-actualization, that I want to ensure that no child is left behind.
And then, because I hate to lie, and because I am bad at it, I have tried, very hard, to live and work as though I believe all the things I said. I respect my fellow teachers immensely, and I admire their passion for their work -- and so I have tried to be like them. I have believed that my students would be ill-served by my own (relatively speaking) callous and self-serving desires, and so I have sought for more intangible, more beneficent and altruistic reasons for doing what I do. Worst of all, I have believed that I myself would be happier, healthier, and more effective in my profession if I could just make myself love it the way other teachers do. And so I have felt guilty, and questioned myself and my methods, and tried, again and again, to act as other teachers act (generally using idealized versions espoused by non-teachers, rather than closely observing my actual human colleagues, because, y'know, I'm an idiot) in the hopes that changing my actions could change my attitude.
This was the wrong thing to do. It is a mistake I have made for years, and thus it approaches the level of sin, of crime, simply because I have never learned from it, and thus have never alleviated the suffering caused by it, suffering inflicted on me, on my family, and yes, on my students. I should have accepted myself for what I am, and recognized that what I feel about my job does not make me bad at it. It doesn't. I am a smart man, I have a good teaching style and persona, and I am very dedicated to doing my job as well as I can, simply because I believe that is how people should treat their jobs, always. I am a good teacher, despite the fact that I don't love what I do.
But because my society has always told me, and I have always tried to believe, that I cannot be a good teacher unless I love my job, I have not been an honest teacher -- and that, has made me a worse teacher than I could have been, than I should have been. For that -- I confess -- I am truly sorry.
And here is my penance: I will admit my sin, and make my confession public (even though I agree with John Proctor, and not with Judge Danforth, in Arthur Miller's The Crucible), and I will try to be better in the future. I will be honest. Inasmuch as students may take my reasons for teaching the wrong way, use my selfish desires as an excuse not to care about my class or my subject (because they, too, have been indoctrinated to believe that teachers must love their jobs, and this has put just as much unnecessary and detrimental pressure on the kids as it has on me and my fellow teachers), I will try to keep a prudent silence about my feelings, just as I refuse to answer directly any queries about mine and my wife's family planning; but I will no longer lie. Never again to myself. I teach for money, and for time off. And I'm good at what I do.
