Teaching follow-up, et al

I just came from the gym. I hadn't been at all this week due to The Boy's hospitalization. I was there once last weekend and missed the week before due to illness.

So Musical Daddy recommended that I do squats, deadlifts, bench press, and military press, and that would be my workout. Four major multi-joint exercises would hit many of the muscles. I've decided to stick with this workout for about a month, and just do that every time I go into the gym.

That's HARD!!! I need a bit of coaching with my squats and I need a refresher on deadlifts, but if I'm doing only this, I can get help from Musical Daddy next time we're in the gym together. But wow--that's a hard workout. Because...it's four major multi-joint exercises.

My "fitness goal" is to get rid of a little excess weight/fat that can mostly be attributed to having two children in under two years, and to maintain a healthy level of physical fitness. I'm not necessarily making any numeric goals, although I might, once I get on Wii Fit again. I don't want to say that I'm looking to lose x number of pounds or to be down to a certain clothing size, because I found that the last time I was exercising consistently and eating well, things fell into place in their own time.

On a mostly unrelated topic, I had a few more thoughts about the whole teacher issue, some of which may be offensive. So, true to form, I'll start with the most offensive statement:

The best and brightest high school and college students usually do not become teachers.

Keep in mind that I did not make an absolute blanket statement about ALL teachers. If you are a teacher who disagrees with this statement, particularly as an absolute, you are probably a part of the minority as a teacher who WAS a very high achiever in high school and college.

Consider, also, that there just isn't enough incentive for "top talent" to go into teaching. Not when there are so many other career options that offer potential for growth, more prestige, more money, and a lot less nonsense.

Different schools with different types of students require different types of teachers.

If you have a conversation with a teacher about his school climate, you will either get an answer about why that type of school is preferred or why he would like to be elsewhere. Many teachers who like teaching in urban settings will tell you that they like to be in a place where they feel needed. But then, there are issues in urban schools and even some suburban schools that other teachers prefer to bypass.

People who know nothing about education will swoop in and proceed to treat the teachers like children.

Come on. You know it's true. Have you been to an in-service brought to you by some outside company? Have you been to an in-service where they say the same thing over and over again?

Okay, enough about that.

Nurses sometimes have the same sets of complaints as teachers. Not surprisingly, nursing and education have been traditionally women's jobs. Nurses do horrific amounts of work and have huge amounts of patient contact. Nurses don't get paid nearly what they are worth.

But the way that nurses, and teachers, do their jobs and continue to perform despite the difficulties is that they care about the people who really matter--the patients, and the students. It takes very special people to become nurses. A certain kind of intelligence is required...and we've noticed that it's not necessarily something that can be learned. Some have it; some don't. Same goes for teachers. Intelligence alone isn't what gets the job done.