I've been asked if I see teaching as a lifelong endeavor. I really don't know. There are times when I really love it, and times when I really hate it. Of course, those observations are based on being a substitute teacher, rather than a regular teacher. As a sub you have someone else's kids, someone else's lesson plans, and someone else's curriculum and discipline. As a sub your students and colleagues change on a daily basis, so you don't get to build up relationships. As a sub, the kids tend to think they have a licence to goof off. It is a picture of teaching, but not the whole picture, or even the best picture.
If I wanted to become a "real" teacher, I'd have to go back to school. I don't have any certification beyond my emergency subbing certificate from the DPI. That in itself is a big proposal. While I love being a student, that is a lot of time and money to spend on something I might not really want to do. I'm already having enough trouble paying off my undergrad debts. Also, want I would really want to teach is art. High school art. High school art in a school with decent funding for the art department. Not exactly something easy to get into. Art teaching jobs are all hard to come by. There is stiff competition even for a part time job teaching art in a grade school whose art department budget consists of poster paints, crayons, and a stack of newsprint. (OK, probably nowhere is quite *that* dire, but you never know. This is the US. Education funding is not what is should be. Arts funding is not what it should be. Put the two together....)
I do like kids, and I do like helping people discover new things. I will probably channel my desire to teach into small scale operations, like the Planned Parenthood sexuality classes, or teaching an occasional photo class on the side somewhere.
What I really want to do with my life is create. A friend of mine with a web design company recently told me that creatives are a dime a dozen right now, and that people with technical skill are where it's at. I suppose that's true, looking at the job market. I'm not such an idealistic brat that I will refuse to take a job I don't like very much, in order to pay the bills. The job I will be returning to in a week or so is really a grunt job. I will be a tech-mook in a creative industry, and that is better than nothing. (For those who are unfamiliar with the term mook, think of the extras in movies: the red shirted ensign on the Star Trek away team, the storm troopers in Star Wars, the extra henchmen or soldiers in action movies....they get a bit of screen time, but they will probably be killed off quickly as the plot requires it and usually get no lines. ) I really do even working artists, people who are able to make a living off their art, or at least enough to make it fund itself as a sideline. I suppose I need to either have more talent or better marketing.
