...About How Busy I Am (Part II)?

II. Academia

Thus far, my path through the minefield that is higher education has been a bit less than ordinary, to say the least. The Cliffnotes version would highlight the two or three (or maybe four, depending on how you want to count things up) previous attempts at earning a silly piece of paper, only to quickly become disillusioned with the idea of spending countless hours and dollars in pursuit of something I wasn't even sure that I wanted. And, to be completely honest, I'm still not sure that I do, in fact, want to spend all of these resources for that silly piece of paper.

I'm working on a bachelor's degree in secondary education, with plans to teach high school math. As of March 2016, I have a semester's worth of classes to finish in the fall before I can apply for the professional half of the degree, which is a two-year minimum program as a full-time student. Up until this point, I have been waffling between full and part time, depending on scheduling concerns and my ever-fluctuating level of enthusiasm. This current semester and the next will be, if all goes according to plan, my last semesters as a part-time student for at least the next two years. I don't know what the workload will look like, but as this series of posts may indicate, I'm already rather constrained on time, so the increased course load is a significant concern. But that's a problem for future-me.

What I've been thinking about mostly in regards to my schooling is the apparent lack of a light at the end of the tunnel. You see, I'm not particularly jazzed about teaching apathetic high school students how to factor polynomials, or how to calculate the limits of trigonometric functions. I completely and wholeheartedly want to improve the lives of teenagers, and this was the best idea I had to accomplish that goal. I can't help but think I'm going to be an acceptable teacher at best; my heart just isn't in the material, and I have significant issues with many parts of the education system as it is currently set up. I'd love to have the attention of some kids that might like to learn about game theory or film, or kids that want to start lifting weights, but are apprehensive or scared, as I once was. Essentially, I want to use the things I've learned and in which I've found value to help kids "level up" faster than they otherwise might.

Life after high school is incredibly odd in my eyes. Nothing really changes all that much, not on its own anyway. The tools available to me now, at almost-30, are mostly the exact same tools I had available to me after graduation. Whatever positive changes I've made in the past two or three years, I could've made ten years ago, and there isn't really any good reason why I shouldn't have. And I think my experience wasn't wholly atypical. I think that the average teenager doesn't realize the power they have right now, in this very moment, and I think that helping them to realize that power is, maybe, the only thing I can reasonably try and do with my life. I simply can't imagine a future where I'm both happy and not working with and around teenagers every day. Learning things about which I'm passionate and improving myself generally has been incredibly rewarding, and I want to share that with everyone.

So I'm enrolled in the University of Louisville, checking off the boxes I'm told to I need to check off, so that I can one day get a job that only tangentially meets the criteria of what I'd like to do. And I'm doing this all so that I can be in a room with (somewhat attentive) audiences of young people. At worst I'll only be able to teach them how to memorize the things that the common core requires them to memorize, only to forget shortly thereafter. Hopefully I'll be able to do much more than that. If nothing else, I can't imagine it will end up leading to the same situation as my current job, but more on that tomorrow.