more matter | less art

Remember the 80′s? I do. How about the 90′s? Those were the times… the times where I cruised through school with nary a care in the world. I loved school, every minute of it. Every minute, of course, until I started high school. For the three years that followed, I hated life. School was dangerous ground for an under-grown, drug-free pastor’s kid with a big mouth. Never did I suspect that my destiny would be to return to the halls of some rural high school and stand at the front of the class rather than sit in the back like I did for 7 years.

I am officially a high school teacher. If it blows your mind, then that makes at least two of us. Any one of my high school teachers would likely be aghast to hear that I am in charge of a group of teens. But that is now my job. I mold young minds. And the residents of rural middle Tennessee are just going to have to get used to that.

Don’t get me wrong; I don’t take my responsibility to educate lightly. In fact, I have already been working pretty hard to prepare for the rigors of teaching on a daily basis. Luckily the education bug runs in my family: my wife, sister and mother all have education degrees. I mooch off them whenever possible for tips and lesson plans.

Thursday will be my first full day of actual instruction, and I will be doing everything in my power to strike the fear of God into those kids. I don’t intend on making them afraid of me, just what the class will entail. I want them to be ready to work and have the expectation that I will stick it to them with heavy reading and writing assignments. That way, if I do lighten up as the year goes by, the students will view it as a privilege, and I will still be able to get the level of performance out of them that I need so they can move on and make the necessary grade. This is all in theory, of course.

Anyhow, I can’t wait until Thursday; however, I am sure my next post will be a screaming rant and have something to do with how stressed out I am. – just something for readers to look forward to.

- The Husband