It's Reigning Men
I am the advisor of the student newspaper at the high school where I work. I really love this part of my job. I'm like one of those PE teachers who became a teacher only so he could be a coach. I pretty much decided to be a teacher because I knew I'd be a journalism teacher and a newspaper advisor. I will admit that it's probably about as stressful as any advisor position in the school, but it's probably 10 times more rewarding. Every month I get to see how incredible my editors are. I basically hand pick my staff. I recruit them from my journalism classes (by "recruit" I mean "beg them to join"). So when they finally become editors, they are well-trained. We had an editor from the Chicago Tribune do a consultation with us, and he said the writing my students did was some of the best he'd seen out of high school students. That's because, even though I tend to be very liberal in every other way, I am quite conservative with my writers and editors (mainly becuase it's my job on the line if they fuck up). I don't let them write stupid ranting editorials about how this one show on MTV sucks or how teachers suck. They write well-informed editorials and balanced news stories on controversial topics . Don't get me wrong; I let them have fun with it, too. One story this month had the editors ranking the best toilets and water fountains in the school. Another one was all about the male "beauty pageant" we have every year with a headline that read * "It's Reigning Men." Technically they do have some First Amendment rights, but they are responsible with this right. It's great. I wish all of you could see it because this most recent issue is really incredible. Anyway, I'm really proud of them. I tell them that all the time, but I don't think I can express my gratitude to the right extent. I know I bitch a lot about work, but I can't think of anything I'd rather do than teach high school students. I think what I love is that I, and every other high school teacher in America, know something few people outside of my profession know: high school kids are pretty incredible. Sure they have shitty taste in music. And they watch way too much MTV. But I'm one of the lucky people in the world that can walk into a room full of these people that adults usually find repulsive and enigmatic and actually get them to do something amazing. That's what I call job satisfaction.
Artist/Album: Neutral Milk Hotel/In the Aeroplane over the Sea
* Ok fine, I wrote that headline, but the point is, they get to have fun.
Artist/Album: Neutral Milk Hotel/In the Aeroplane over the Sea
* Ok fine, I wrote that headline, but the point is, they get to have fun.
posted by Sue Ellen Mischke at 6:46 PM
5 Comments:
Good for you! Teaching is one of those professions you better love, because you sure can't do it for the money!
It was a pageant, and not an auction, right?
"Our next bachelor is number, uh, one twenty-four in your program. He's uh... he's a high school graduate... Oh, uh, equivalency. A high school equivalency program graduate. He's uh, self-employed. He's... I don't know, six-foot-three? A hundred ninety pounds. He likes fruit. And, uh, he just got a haircut."
I've been singing It's Raining Men all day thanks to you...
When you talk about your job, you sound like my dad. He's a high school principal. He absolutely loves his job (and he started out as one of those who taught (history) only so he could coach). I know from him that education is one of those fields you can be in only if you love it. Plus, students can always tell which teachers hate it. At least I could always tell which of my teachers hated it. (Some of them seemed to really detest kids - I never understood why one would go into teaching if you didn't like kids.) Anyway, that's great that you're doing what you love. I tend to think that most people can't say that.
(I wonder if you know some of my friends. They're teachers in Chicago too. Not that there aren't millions of teachers in Chicago of course...) Actually, I think one of them checked your blog once (I had to share that New Year's Eve toilet story) so I'm assuming you don't know him since he would have recognized you in your picture.
Is this comment long enough? I'll stop now.
Esbee- Actually, in the lush suburbs of chicago, you can make a pretty good living teaching. i just happen to live way beyond my means so I am always broke. but there are some teachers that retire making over 110,000/year, which isn't bad since we have our summers off (although at that salary, you spend all your summers taking classes and probably running some kind of basketball or football camp).
Bone- yes, it was a pageant. Not an auction. That would be interesting though.
HB- sorry. that's awful. I had a jingle for Brown's Chicken in my head all day, which you probably don't have Browns but anyway.
Lizzie- thanks for the long comment. I like those. I'm thinking about getting my Type 75 certification, which means another masters degree and the option to be an administrator. We'll see if I do that. Southie is trying to talk me into doing it with him (the masters program i mean).
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