Teaching and Learning

While showering today it occurred to me that I may never teach art again. For my family and friends, some of you may be thinking this is a huge sacrifice and or that I'm giving up who I am. While I want to teach art, and be an art teacher, I feel pretty good about possibly finding a future in teaching English. Teaching at Hyde, we "specials" teachers were always required to attend the English and Math professional development because they never arranged for professional development specific to our subjects, and it wouldn't be fair if we didn't have to attend some sort of 3 hour meeting, so I became invested in raising those reading scores on the high stakes state tests, we as educators knew were false indicators of our students actual intelligence. I came into the teaching profession as an art teacher and had a really good experience, I hope I find myself in a similar position in the future, but I fell in love with teaching, and I think I could find a similar passion for teaching English. That's not to say I have any interest whatsoever in teaching math or physical education, but I minored in English and during the last 4 years I've spent plenty of time working with students who are remedial in their English writing and reading skills both as an America Reads tutor and at Hyde where I had a reading group with students whose reading levels were 2 levels below grade level. Teaching English as I see it, offers a chance to keep teaching fresh and interesting, a new challenge and a new teaching perspective. I hope to have the chance to teach art again, it's something I love, but as long as I'm still in the game then I don't see any reason to complain.

Still in the shower I was also thinking about something I was learning from being with Sylvain. I've done a lot of reading and watched a lot of lectures online about Global Warming, I have no doubt it's one of the most important challenges our world faces right now and as an American it's clear that we produce the most waste and are the biggest culprits in making climate change a reality. However, my dad thinks this is a huge liberal agenda farce. My parents and I don't share even a morsel of the same political ideas, we could be further apart on the spectrum, and at least in the sense that I did some research, kept an open mind and then made up my own mind I find my father's refusal to be open-minded and at least read and watch the evidence before stubbornly sticking his head back in the sand a selfish mistake- he may not have to live to see global warming play out, but my kids will. I recently had a conversation with my mom two days in a row where she mentioned the "bizarre weather" we've been having- she was so sincere in her inability to account for the strange fluctuations in cold one week and hot the next- but when I said, but of course this is evidence of climate change- her knee-jerk reaction was- well I don't believe in that. Two days in a row people, same statement citing evidence of climate change, and then refusing to accept the reality!

But what I realized early on in my relationship with Sylvain, is that Europeans, or at least the French - and I'm sure there are those individuals who don't adhere to this cultural condition- are raised with a green conscious. Europeans have always driven smaller cars, they were the first to address environmental issues when Global Warming first became a buzz phrase and I've never even heard of anyone from Europe denying it's reality. Sylvain is not nearly as pro-actively liberal as I am, he doesn't forward articles to friends and family or get worked up about this stuff- but I mention how I miss having a bath and his immediate reaction is baths aren't environmentally friendly and the look of disappointment on his face shamed me. He does this about everything, turning off the water for the toilet unless we're flushing, the lights, no AC, public transportation- his parent's don't seem especially environmentally conscious it's just a cultural condition.

I remember once in forth grade we did this science project- we had to close the drain in our tub and measure whether we used more water taking a bath or a shower- of course we used more water with the bath- lesson learned- but I am sure it didn't affect us as 9 year olds in the least, we carried on taking our bath or shower but not about to be inconvenienced by this issue. As American's, I'm sorry but we don't care, or at least not enough to be inconvenienced. Sure, as an adult, there are those of us who have grown up conscious of the way we live, trying reduce, reuse and recycle. Turning off lights, and tv's, not buying everything in access, buying local, buying smaller more energy efficient cars, not using the air-conditioner constantly etc, but this is hardly a national trend. My dad turns the tv on at 7am when he wakes up and the reality is he spends half the day outside working on stuff, but that tv stays on full volume all day long until 9pm when he goes to bed- as a child my parents may have nagged me to turn off my light or close the door because the air conditioner was on, but it wasn't about the environment it was about their electricity bill, and if they want the tv on, or if they want a bath every night their conscience isn't stopping them. My parents are the rule not the exception.

One of the things I remember growing up was our clothes line- I'm sorry, but there are few things as wonderful as getting into bed at night with sheets that have been hung out to dry in the afternoon sun. There's a controversy now in America over clothes lines being a sight for sore eyes, and in many housing developments having them is illegal. My aunt breaks the rules and has one anyway, and the local newspaper did an article about her in the paper. There isn't a country in the world that does everything perfect- see my European joke from France, you suck! but when there are models out there that do it better, it's important and smart to realize you can learn from others and adopt better practices, because frankly it's sad that people are more concerned about their neighbors laundry being an eyesore than the win win of fresh sheets to sleep in, and lower energy bills.