Some thoughts about teachers

As a home school teacher, I am very able to see where my weaknesses and strenghts are.

I am not a good math teacher. I can see that quite clearly. While my children have all managed to succeed in math, that success has less to do with me than the fact that I chose materials appropriate to what they needed,. And I can't forget the fact that I have had the assitance of my very math-minded husband. As well, science is not my favourite subject; again, they have done well because I am good at researching and have manage to pick good material.

My strenghts are things with words; history, english, french, Latin, reading, spelling, and all that good stuff. My children are all good writers; very good writers.

I know a homeschool family where they are all math geniuses. One of them is not even 18 years old yet, and he's begun his post-secondary training in engineering. He's very good with math. Not so good with words, though. I played Scrabulous with him; I killed him twice. This is coming from someone who has been trounced by not one, but two Scrabble geniuses. This young engineering student has a very math-minded mother. In fact, one year, I bought a math curriculum from her, and she actually provided me with a solution manual for the tests booklet (one didn't come with the curriculum) that she had done herself. So, here we have two home school families who have children all succeeding at things that reflect their home school moms. My friend has a son who is a plumber, one is working with computers, the other is doing accounting and now her youngest is in engineering. My kids? I have a daughter majoring in English at university, a son who is pulling off 90s in History at high school despite never doing much homework, and a young one at home who seems to have a flair with words, despite the fact that he's not too shabby in math.

That gives me pause to think about schools and teachers. In this day and age, there is no guarantee that your child will have a math teacher who majored in math. My son this past semester had science taught to him by a gym teacher. Now, in order to be a teacher, she has to teach a non-required and a required course. It was, however, obvious, that this teacher's forte was not science. Furthermore, my son had a French teacher last year who was also a librarian. I got the feeling she would have preferred being in the library.

This semester, my son has a History teacher who loves history. I'm so happy for him. There is something wonderful about having a teacher who loves his material. Yet, how many students have to live with a teacher who hates his subject? I have a teacher friend whose area of expertise was business and accounting. She ended up teaching English one year and at one point telephoned a fellow home school mom for advice about how to do this.

There is no question that education creates all kinds of "issues" in the public square. Here in Canada, education is a province-run project, so we look to our provincial legislatures for guidance. We also have teacher's unions to deal with, school boards and parent advisory councils. I get the feeling that education has all kinds of problems. I hear about some of them, but my son is doing well, so they're not serious issues.

However, how many kids are falling through the cracks because there are teachers who don't really like teaching? I was talking to a young person the other day, and despite the fact that tends to think of home schoolers as kooks (present company excluded, he assures me) he thinks he wants to home school his children when he's a parent if just to protect them from apathetic teachers.

I don't think all teachers are apathetic. And I don't think that all teachers are medicore with their material. I do think, however, that there are too many teachers who are not there because they love teaching. I guess in a perfect world, all teachers would love what they taught, and would do well with it. Even within home school families, that situation doesn't exist. One difference that does exist in a home school is that the teacher has a special care and regard for the students that the public school teacher may not have. And I say "may not" have, because I know some teachers who care deeply. Recently, my daughter, who is taking an introductory Economics course at university had a problem with something, and she telephoned one of her teachers from Grade 12 who was more than happy to help her. That is a teacher who cares. For those of us who use the public system, we need to pray for more teachers like that. Perhaps teacher's colleges need to find some way of evaluating a potential teacher that will weed the bad ones out.

Look at me. I'd love to be a teacher. I'd be a good teacher. But in order to ever be considered for that job, I'd have to spend money and get more "education" just to say that I am able. Yet, clearly I am able. And clearly, I like what I'm doing for the most part. If my son goes to public school next, year I hope he gets at least one teacher who loves what he is doing.