I have been teaching science to young adults in my hometown for over 15 years, rambling along the way. Thanks for stopping by.
Science teacher
Educon 2018, Part I
I got into medicine damn near accidentally. I left with intention.
Which is not to say I did not belong there while I did it, nor does it mean I did not enjoy it. But I left to become a teacher, and it was a good decision. Still, nobody asks “Why did you go into teaching?”
The question I’m asked:
“Why did you leave medicine?”
There are a lot of reasons teaching is better than medicine (and many reasons why medicine beats ed), but one thing medicine has all over education is the Morbidity and Mortality Conference, a regular meeting where, behind (mostly) closed doors, we dissected each other’s mistakes.
Some mistakes cost limbs, some cost lives.
We made the mistakes, we were made to own them.
I have argued long and loudly that our profession is too nice, we play too well together, we fear criticism.
And then I went to Educon, a convention held at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, founded by Chris Lehmann.
He’s the one on the left, photo via Jose Vilson’s work.
We dissected each other, publicly and passionately. In the next few weeks I hope to share a bit of what I learned in Philly last weekend (including do not smack cars even if it’s pushed you off the crosswalk, Philly Pholk are a tad sensitive).
But let me start with this–Educon made me proud to be a pubic high school teacher.
Turns out I’m not the only one who does not play nice….
January Beach Walk
The air warmed up, the beach did not–ice and snow lay just beneath the sand. I went barefoot anyway.
Not much to say, except to say words cannot say what I would want to say. Four scoters waddling by, occasionally dipping under for food. A gull slamming a dying crab on the sandbar. A tiny flock of five sand pipers sharing nine legs.
Oysters scattered on the beach, torn off the rocks by last week’s ice, still alive. The sand will swallow them up if the birds don’t get them first.
Death all around, but death is always all around–it’s easier to see when the living retreat for the season.
The deep January colors and long shadows reminded me not who I am as much as what we are part of–but that’s a conceit. There was no me for long moments. Or maybe everything was me, which is impossible, of course. Words fail.
When I came back, my tracks had filled with water, which then sought the bay, as water will.
This one is for me.