Teaching as a profession doesn't have a lot to recommend it these days. The public has a pretty jaded view of teachers (amazing, considering the ability to read is almost universally passed on through teachers), and politicians see teachers, and other government service employees, and new scapegoats for their own overspending habits. Teaching is one of the few professions I know of where, even though required to be degreed to enter, there is now no job security once you have passed your probationary period; the "tenure" of the past has been almost universally assaulted in the great political attack on the profession. Teaching is a profession where your union can negotiate conditions of employment for you, but has no power to object to negotiation in bad faith, and no legal recourse to the strike, work action, or any other means to attempt to enforce the rights of its members at the table. So why would anyone, in this current unfavorable environment, want to teach?
I've done pretty much everything else I wanted to do. I was a Navy man, submarines, nuclear propulsion plant supervisor. I saw some exciting times, some terrors, some great ports. There had to be something more...
I was an environmental engineer in the early days of environmental engineering, when there were no schools, no degree programs. We came from chemistry, mechanical, nuclear backgrounds. We broke ground in how to write the permits, regulations, and laws that keep our water, air, and land clean, clear, and unpolluted. Those were heady days as well, much of it by the seat of the pants; some mistakes were made, most of them overprotective. Companies were being bought and sold, went in and out of business, exciting times...
I worked for the state putting Veterans back to work. I got to meet a lot of business owners, had to figure out what they wanted in employees, and tried to shoehorn people into jobs. I learned a great deal about small business and jobs, what caused hiring, what didn't. I put lots of fellows to work, but not near as many as I would have liked...
So now I look back, and wonder what the young people have to look forward to. They will need tools, not just a diploma, but some skills, people skills, some inside knowledge about how things work out there. I have some of that knowledge, and I have an interest in sharing it with our youth.
I see the examples young people have on television and in movies; they want to be rock stars, or sports stars, or drug dealers. And why not, our media lionizes all of those? They are buried in images of older men that they think are what they should aspire to... but they shouldn't. The images that popular media spews forth are the worst examples, shallow, stingy, uncaring. Almost as bad are the current crop of politicians, with the "I've got mine, to Heck with you" mantra.
I teach because I want to be an example of what a man in today's world can be for these youths. I want them to see someone that isn't a media cutout, a sports star, a drug dealer. I want them to see a person with a full, successful life, not driven by greed or want of monetary excess. If I can do that, and also teach them a little bit about science, then I will consider this, most likely my last career in life, to have been a good one.
It is said, "find a job you love, and you won't work a day in your life."
MMG
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Letter to my Great-Grand Children
To the children of my grand children: my legacy, the legacy of my generation, will be upon you about now. Be brave, in a thousand years, this, too, will pass.
My parents and I built a great and grand nation, this United States that has held court and kept the peace during much of my life through force of arms and through judicious use of a vast treasury. I was proud to have taken part of the Pax Americana under the waves, my service, with that of thousands of other young men and women, part of what made our way of life for the better part of a century.
Have you studied Rome, or have the schools finally fallen completely to the elite? As the great empire Rome once kept peace in what it knew as its world, so the borders quaked with a new religion, a religion born of martyrs and zealots, a religion that eventually enveloped the empire itself, and changed it to the core, dismantling the Roman culture, weakening the Roman fist. Rome feel as much from within as from the incessant pounding by tribes that wanted a piece of the glory and riches of Rome from without.
My nation-empire's fall began from its assault by a religion, hitherto almost unknown in the West, the religion of Islam, an attack beginning on the borders. The religion, one of martyrs and zealots, attacked the core of Western culture, seeking to dismantle what it felt was sick and evil about the country. They were right in many ways; we were sick, and many evil influences held sway throughout American culture. In the end, the incessant wars throughout the world on American holdings, as well as the weakening of American institutions from within caused the total collapse of our society.
And as happened with the theocracies of the Middle Ages, we entered an era of no education, little enlightenment, petty inhumanities, and a general meanness of life. This is the legacy we leave to you, my great grandchildren, a Second Dark Age. My hope for you is that the change the last Dark Age worked on Christianity will be worked ever quicker on Islam, and that your own grandchildren will see a brighter future in an enlightened, caring world.
MMG
My parents and I built a great and grand nation, this United States that has held court and kept the peace during much of my life through force of arms and through judicious use of a vast treasury. I was proud to have taken part of the Pax Americana under the waves, my service, with that of thousands of other young men and women, part of what made our way of life for the better part of a century.
Have you studied Rome, or have the schools finally fallen completely to the elite? As the great empire Rome once kept peace in what it knew as its world, so the borders quaked with a new religion, a religion born of martyrs and zealots, a religion that eventually enveloped the empire itself, and changed it to the core, dismantling the Roman culture, weakening the Roman fist. Rome feel as much from within as from the incessant pounding by tribes that wanted a piece of the glory and riches of Rome from without.
My nation-empire's fall began from its assault by a religion, hitherto almost unknown in the West, the religion of Islam, an attack beginning on the borders. The religion, one of martyrs and zealots, attacked the core of Western culture, seeking to dismantle what it felt was sick and evil about the country. They were right in many ways; we were sick, and many evil influences held sway throughout American culture. In the end, the incessant wars throughout the world on American holdings, as well as the weakening of American institutions from within caused the total collapse of our society.
And as happened with the theocracies of the Middle Ages, we entered an era of no education, little enlightenment, petty inhumanities, and a general meanness of life. This is the legacy we leave to you, my great grandchildren, a Second Dark Age. My hope for you is that the change the last Dark Age worked on Christianity will be worked ever quicker on Islam, and that your own grandchildren will see a brighter future in an enlightened, caring world.
MMG
Our Legacy: Our Children's Pain
Much has been said about the "me" generation, or Generation Z as some call it, the young people coming up into the world today with expectations wildly out of sync with the reality of life, expectations that we, their parents, unwittingly seeded in their minds while they were still little children.
Sometime in the 70s and 80s, the education establishment became enthralled with the concept of "self-esteem," a system of self-image that was somehow strong enough to determine future courses for our children. It became vogue to make sure everybody played, no matter how poorly they did so, and ribbons or trophies were awarded simply for participation. The actual level of performance was no longer really important, as those that strove for perfection were not awarded anymore than the ones that barely tried. What were we thinking?
As these young children became young adults, what did we expect from them? They never had to compete for anything, they never had to excel in any endeavor to win accolades; "You are perfect just as you are," "all you have to do is dream hard enough, and you can achieve anything at all." The watchword became "want" and "wish." There was no reaching, no working for goals, and no recognition of a goal out of reach.
On top of this, Media was there to feed the appetite for dreams. Madison Avenue makes its living on selling to dreams, and Media makes its living on selling Madison Avenue. As these same children sat in front of televisions as the new babysitter, Media fueled the dreamers, with no provision for the work that goes into making a dream come true. Just dream it, all is well, just buy this hair product, just buy this happy meal, you can't go wrong.
Our consumer kids are now consumer adults with dreams that aren't being met. Most cannot even find meaningful jobs. They go to college and get degrees in fields that have no real connection to life or living, then are crushed when they are back home with their parents, the same ones that raised them who now are telling them they are lazy, entitled, starry-eyed. What else could they be, we made them that way?
So now they slip into illness, depression. They slink off into corners of addiction and escape. Some are meeting the challenge and switching to the hard work necessary in life, but it isn't easy or nice, and whole families come apart in spectacular fashion. But even then, they leave their less adaptable siblings behind to wallow in their confusion.
Well, we made this mess; as before, it is to us to straighten it out, and by example. The older generation cannot turn over the world just yet, we have to help our children learn how to take the reigns and do the work that must be done. We have to show them what it is to work, without apparent compensation, without immediate payoff.
We have to teach the three things we didn't give our children the first time: patience, determination, and a cause larger than self.
MMG
Sometime in the 70s and 80s, the education establishment became enthralled with the concept of "self-esteem," a system of self-image that was somehow strong enough to determine future courses for our children. It became vogue to make sure everybody played, no matter how poorly they did so, and ribbons or trophies were awarded simply for participation. The actual level of performance was no longer really important, as those that strove for perfection were not awarded anymore than the ones that barely tried. What were we thinking?
As these young children became young adults, what did we expect from them? They never had to compete for anything, they never had to excel in any endeavor to win accolades; "You are perfect just as you are," "all you have to do is dream hard enough, and you can achieve anything at all." The watchword became "want" and "wish." There was no reaching, no working for goals, and no recognition of a goal out of reach.
On top of this, Media was there to feed the appetite for dreams. Madison Avenue makes its living on selling to dreams, and Media makes its living on selling Madison Avenue. As these same children sat in front of televisions as the new babysitter, Media fueled the dreamers, with no provision for the work that goes into making a dream come true. Just dream it, all is well, just buy this hair product, just buy this happy meal, you can't go wrong.
Our consumer kids are now consumer adults with dreams that aren't being met. Most cannot even find meaningful jobs. They go to college and get degrees in fields that have no real connection to life or living, then are crushed when they are back home with their parents, the same ones that raised them who now are telling them they are lazy, entitled, starry-eyed. What else could they be, we made them that way?
So now they slip into illness, depression. They slink off into corners of addiction and escape. Some are meeting the challenge and switching to the hard work necessary in life, but it isn't easy or nice, and whole families come apart in spectacular fashion. But even then, they leave their less adaptable siblings behind to wallow in their confusion.
Well, we made this mess; as before, it is to us to straighten it out, and by example. The older generation cannot turn over the world just yet, we have to help our children learn how to take the reigns and do the work that must be done. We have to show them what it is to work, without apparent compensation, without immediate payoff.
We have to teach the three things we didn't give our children the first time: patience, determination, and a cause larger than self.
MMG
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