All Episodes
Previous Next
April 30, 2012 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
36:06
2136 How to Be a Great Teacher - A Freedomain Radio Listener Conversation
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Hey, Steph. Hello, hello, hello.
How are you? I'm doing well.
How about yourself? I'm very well, thank you.
So I guess, yeah.
First year teacher, I just finished doing my sister's maternity leave in her fourth grade classroom.
So I spent about three months to four months, about three or four months teaching fourth grade.
And I liked a lot of it, but there was a lot that I saw problems with and I wasn't sure if I could do this for my entire life.
I'm not sure if this is what I want to dedicate my entire life to.
And I'm just wondering how I can meet the same...
I was just wondering maybe to brainstorm a little bit of how to meet the same need I have.
I want to spend time with children and teach them UPB either through action and create emotional connections that they can get to the point where they can learn what they want.
So I don't really care about the academic part, but I care about being an emotional attachment for maybe 19 kids for six hours a day, at least knowing that they're safe.
And sorry, did you just cut out for a sec when you were describing that?
Was it a teaching position that you had?
Yeah, it was fourth grade.
Fourth grade. Okay, got it.
And sorry, is this sort of a school year?
So what's 10 months? Yeah.
Okay. And tell me a little bit more about your experience.
What made it something so desirable?
Well, I loved hanging out with the kids.
And it was really interesting to figure out ways to entice them to buy something that they already have to buy regardless.
So I thought it was always kind of interesting to figure out how to best make it as voluntary as possible.
Like, how are they going to want to do this?
Why are they going to want to do this? That was always fun.
Yeah, it's like how to make your arranged marriage wife fall in love with you, right?
Exactly, exactly. You know what I mean?
Trying to work within the system, I guess the way I see it is you're always going to do some damage, but I guess damage control.
So work as hard as you can to...
Sorry, tell me what you mean when you say you're always going to do some damage.
I just want to make sure I understand that.
Well, the kid doesn't want...
I mean, the kid is fundamentally...
His rights are being invalidated by the fact that he is compulsory.
So there's already some, it's kind of like doing a hot dog or a hamburger.
It's not really a choice, so much as it is like hoping that you don't really see the real lack of choice.
Yeah, I was just thinking the other day, actually no, I was just thinking today about how, you know, it's education, it's for the kids, it's for the kids, they say, but I don't ever remember getting a survey about what I liked or what I didn't, which teachers I liked and which teachers I didn't.
I don't remember anyone ever, and even in college, who gives a shit, right?
Doesn't really make any difference. Because they've got tenure, right?
But it's crazy.
You're 12 years. Nobody ever asks you what you would like.
Yeah, it's a soul-crushing experience, to say the least.
But it's not you that's doing the damage, right?
I think that's important to understand, right?
I mean, if you're the first responder on some scene where some guy's got crushed under rubble and you're moving the rubble away, it's not you who's doing the damage, right?
Yeah. No, I'm witnessing it.
And maybe sometimes I'm hurting them as I'm getting rocks off of them.
Yeah, you're helping. I think you're alleviating the damage, if that makes any sense.
Yeah. Because, I mean, you did design the system, right?
Yeah, I don't consider myself a builder of anything.
You know what I mean? I don't create.
I just try to do damage control, like you said, just with the rubble.
Right. Right.
Right. And, I mean, that's going to have some pretty profound effects.
So grade 4, what are they, 10 years old, 11 years old?
9, 10. 9, 10.
Okay. All right.
Okay. So, and tell me a little bit more, if you don't mind, about your experience of the 10 months.
It was really nice.
However, I experienced some times where it did seem impossible to meet all the needs of all the kids.
And your patience does dwindle.
And, you know, I maybe snapped two times, and each time I immediately apologized.
You know, I said, hey, that was me.
But even then, it felt so gross, and it's like, while I was in that moment, I was just like, I had all these different kids with all these different needs, none of them able to be met fully, and it just stresses you out to the point where you want everybody to obey, but then it just gets messy.
And so then you have to, like, afterwards, you kind of say, whoa, what went wrong there?
Like, at what point did I fly off the handlebar?
And it wasn't, I tend to be harsh on myself, so I don't think, I hope it doesn't sound like I was terribly violent.
It was once or twice, and I I really tried to prevent doing it again.
To me, the standard of perfection when dealing with kids is unrealistic because what they need is not a perfect relationship.
What they need is a relationship wherein the imperfections are acknowledged.
Does that make sense? Yeah, acknowledged in a non-judgmental way.
Sorry, I was hoping sometimes the words come to be like the landing guy trying to Get the words to come to me like getting wild birds to eat out of your head sometimes.
What I mean is that, so my daughter has seen, I think twice, my wife and I have disagreements.
Yeah. You know, and, you know, I mean, of course we're speaking reasonably, but, you know, we're upset or whatever, have problems with each other.
And I think that's fine because she needs to know that people can love each other enormously, have disagreements and resolve them.
I don't think I've ever snapped but I've been careless and she's got a bump or something and so I don't have to have the standard called I will never cause her any physical pain but like today I left the cupboard door open and she came around the corner and bumped her hand on it.
But that was my fault, right?
So it's not like she needs to never get an injury because of something I did.
But what she needs is for me to take ownership and apologize and so on, so that she knows that people can do things to you that are difficult or unpleasant, even if they're accidental, but to apologize and take ownership and not escalate and not blame and not say, well, it was your fault for running so fast.
I told you three times, right?
So there's no standard called perfection.
When it comes to any relationship, because that's a crazy standard.
It's impossible. It's like saying, I will never, ever act out of integrity with my ideals.
It's like, oh God, what a living hell that would be.
What I need to do is, if I do act out of integrity with my ideals, a way of not acting with integrity, to be curious, to figure out what happened, and to forgive and move on.
I don't mean to start lecturing right away.
I just want to point out that it's not a failure.
And it's not a negative.
If you snap at the kids, it is...
Because in life, there are going to be people who snap at them.
So let's say you never snapped at the kids, right?
And then next year, they have some teacher who snaps at them.
They will have no idea what's on the other side of that, assuming that you were their first teacher or whatever, right?
You had the major influence.
But if you snap at them and then you say, oh, you know what?
I'm sorry. That's not your fault.
That was me being snappy and that's not your fault.
I apologize. Then what happens is the next time a teacher snaps at them and doesn't do that, they'll record that as a deviation.
Yeah. Does that make sense?
Yeah. I was always very, very willing and ready to admit my mistakes as a way of hopefully teaching by example.
Right. Yes, no, that's very important.
That's very, very important.
And there are times when you're dealing with kids where Like, you know, my daughter got a little tent as a present.
And the tent is like, it's like trying to jam my ass into a sardine can getting into that tent.
And, you know, without the fun thing of like sardines at the other end.
Exactly. No fish.
No fish. So, you know, I mean, what's the point if there's oil on, obviously.
Anyway, that's another topic. But, you know, there are times when I, you know, she's like, come in and play.
And, you know, I come in and she just starts throwing balls around.
These little hot plastic balls.
It's like, I would pay good money to not do this.
I don't have an enemy bad enough that I'd want to put in here.
And so I will say, I'll do it for a while, but then it's just like, I'm sorry, I don't want to do this anymore.
I'm glad you're having fun, but I'm not.
And that's fine.
We'll try and negotiate about something that's fun for both of us.
Of course, she wants me to keep doing what she wants me to do, and I want to do something different.
And so I don't know if people have the standard like, well, I just have to grit my teeth and enjoy the ball-flying death maze of chronic compartmentalization and claustrophobia.
No, it's not fun. She needs to know what the real experience is that I'm having of that.
And if it's not fun and I'm gritting my teeth and pretending it's fun, I'm not teaching her anything good in that moment.
In fact, I think I'm teaching her something not good.
Does that make any sense? Yeah, you're enabling.
Yeah. Well, I'm obscuring reality for her.
And I'm not being honest with her in that moment.
So, I mean, you don't scream and shake kids by the neck, but if you're like, ah, just put that down, and you snap at them, and then you can say, you know what, sorry, that was a bit too much.
But it's okay, because that is your honest, you know, it's okay to snap at kids.
It's okay to snap, I mean, people snap at me, and, you know, that's okay, as long as it's, you know, dealt with in the moment, and it doesn't sort of escalate, or you don't pretend it didn't happen, or whatever.
So, I'm sorry to To go off on that tangent, but it's something I've been thinking about.
That was valuable. Yeah, you have to teach them how to deal with negative emotions, and you don't do that by pretending you don't have them.
Does that make any sense? Yeah, yeah.
I just felt like every time I had them, it was something wrong that I was doing.
No, no, no, no.
Because it may be something wrong that the kids are doing.
And I don't mean wrong like they're...
But the reason they're acting out is because they're forced to be in this thing.
You know, that's the part that gets me.
You know, kids do not...
I mean, they have some sense of empathy when they are kids, but my experience has been that what happens with kids is they have empathy when they're calm, but then they get excited.
And when they get excited, there's like a brainstorm that happens which excludes everything except their own excitement, right?
Yeah, I mean, they don't, you know, if you and I are jumping up and down because we won the lottery, you know, we may not feel So you walk into a lottery store or you walk into the convenience store and you've just won $10,000 or $100,000 in the lottery.
You're jumping up and down. You're not sitting there thinking, well, all these people around me haven't won the lottery and they're probably feeling quite envious right now because in that moment of excitement, empathy is not your number one thing and kids have that like about half the day if they're having fun.
And so kids need to sort of be reminded that there are other people's feelings involved, even when they get excited, or perhaps specifically when they get excited.
And I think that's a valuable thing to do.
Anyway, I just want to mention that. Yeah.
I've been listening to some Gatto interviews, and I look forward to reading his book shortly here, after I get done with some of Gabor Matei's stuff.
But I heard a quote he said, I liked it a lot, he said, I had to quit.
I couldn't hurt kids anymore or something along those lines.
I couldn't hurt kids another year. The year he resigned.
Something to that effect. And I feel like that already.
It's like you get the good times, but it comes with the damage that you understand is occurring before you.
Right. Like the atrophy of the brain.
Right. Well, because you are, of course, Sorry, you're a fairly small factor in their lives as a whole, which is not to say you can't be very important, right?
My dentist has a very small amount of time with me during the year, but she's quite important to my continued happiness, right?
So with these kids, would you have them for like a morning or would you have a rotating series of kids so you'd get them an hour a day?
It would be the same kids starting at 7.50 and ending at 3.20.
Oh, so it was a full day with the kids?
Yeah, that's what I liked about it.
I got to really build relationships with each kid.
You really do. That's huge.
7.50 in the morning?
Did you say 7.50?
Yeah, 7.50 in the morning.
What the hell are these kids? Sorry, what the hell?
Why are they starting so early?
Because in the district, it's only four days a week because of funding cuts.
And there's people that come in. It's a small town.
So the busing commute costs a lot.
So cutting an extra day and adding more time like that is what they do to compensate for the Poor funding.
Oh, those bastards. And of course, it's not poor funding.
I mean, that's bullshit. Inefficient funding.
Well, it's, yeah, I mean, it's all the money's getting hoovered up by bullshit stuff and pensions and healthcare plans and so on for a bunch of people who are retired.
Yeah, there's just no quality control.
I mean, there's just no, there's just no quality.
It's too hard to fire a teacher. Right, right, right.
Okay, well, we'll get to that in a sec.
So, I just, I mean, 750, holy crap.
I mean, that's, I mean, these kids got to be getting up at 6, 6.30 in the morning.
I mean, that's rough, right?
Yeah, yeah. I mean, are they tired?
Or was that just my projection?
Oh, it's times when I'm tired. I'd be like, hey, you look a little tired.
They're like, yeah. I remember them were super hot.
Everyone has different living conditions, and you can tell which ones have emotional safety and whatnot.
But yeah, generally.
And often, the ones that are emotionally unsafe, you ask them to focus.
That's like asking a fish to climb a tree, because they can't even calm their emotions.
Are you expecting to learn any sort of fractions or anything like that?
So it's like, you have to tell the...
You have to tell these kids. The best I could think is that the kids that can't focus, you just don't do them any more harm.
Because they're not going to be paying attention enough.
Right, and you sort of keep them out of the way of the kids who can focus, so you're sort of running into interference like a linebacker or something.
Exactly. So all my human resources, yeah, if she were to be paying attention, all my human resources would go into her.
And we've discussed this before, where if you had emotionally abused your kids, you ought to be able to pay more.
But this is the case for the system that I was working in.
Right, right.
Then you have this girl here who clearly can't hang with the rest of the people, and you have the rest...
Gabor Matei's book brought up some good points that I noticed as well.
If I had people group up in Paris to do an assignment, if I grouped up with this particular girl that was emotionally unstable and sat with her, she would have the attention, like they said.
But if it's in any sort of large group, even five kids at a group, unable to focus.
And there's tons of these kids all over that are emotionally abused, many much worse.
So it's just...
It's shitty...
To be in a position where you're watching this girl struggle and there's like...
It's just a shitty situation for everybody.
It almost seems like.
So I don't know if I could spend the rest of my life doing that.
What I was wondering is also when it comes to resources.
So that unpluggedmom.com?
Yeah. Is that what her...
Yeah. I was watching that interview and like...
That would be fine and dandy if you had the resources, right?
So how is a poor person supposed to do that?
And maybe this is a pretty typical question, but how would an economically poor family be able to afford to do that?
Well, I mean, you can live pretty damn cheap if you need to, right?
If you're very, very smart with your money.
Yeah. I mean, there are people I've met in the libertarian movement who get by on a couple thousand dollars a year.
I mean, you have to be creative.
You have to live outside. You know, you've got to move out of the city.
You've got to grow your own food.
You've got to, you know, lots of things you can do.
It's definitely, it's out of the box thinking for sure.
And of course, a lot of people don't think that way.
Or don't think about that stuff at all.
Yeah, and usually there's a correlation between, you know, a low amount of socioeconomic status and also stress and family and how that stress affects the brain growing up.
So those people probably aren't going to be the best at, like, managing that kind of stuff anyways, you know?
Right. Just doing the structures of their brain relative to people who are brought up in a much less stressful environment.
Henry Thoreau, yeah.
Walton is pretty cheap, right?
Anyway. It's possible, it's just it's not what people are generally conditioned to think of.
Yeah, and so I'm trying to figure out a platform and brainstorm a direction to start taking a career because I don't think I want to be John Taylor Gatto.
I'd rather not repeat his same mistake of 30 years in the business before realizing it, you know what I mean?
I'd rather learn from his mistake and spend my 30 years doing something else.
But having a hard time finding a platform that gives you 19 kids from 7.50 to 3.20 four days a week or whatever.
Well, what about teaching in a private school?
I taught at a private school, but it was like the McDonald's of education and it was one of the most miserable experiences of my life.
I could tell you that much. It was abusive and I had to watch it all go down and couldn't do anything.
Tell me a little more. What do you mean?
Just watching kids get abused verbally, insufficient resources, kids running around crazed, false advertising on the front so they tell their kids they're receiving something and they're not actually getting it.
Kids that misbehave, for funding reasons, you have to find some reasons to lie to them.
It's just really, really dirty and deceitful.
Well, I mean, maybe a better private school.
Yeah, exactly. Montessori private school or Lancaster private school or if they have...
Montessori teachers get paid about $10 an hour.
I mean, I know you can be thrifty, but that's still a pretty low wage.
What do you mean they get paid $10 an hour?
Montessori teachers, any...
Montessori or like Waldorf, they don't get paid much.
Are you sure about that?
I mean, look, obviously I don't mean to question because you're in the field, but that seems awfully low.
I mean, that's like a couple of bucks.
When you say Montessori, are you talking about, like, preschool?
No, I'm just, I mean, whatever, whatever level, right?
Some places in Montessori got up to grade 8 or whatever, but, you know, Montessori schools can cost you, you know, $10,000, $15,000, $20,000 a year as a parent.
Sorry, sorry, I was thinking of the preschool.
I apologize. Um, Oh, you mean like daycare?
Oh, yeah, yeah, of course. No, but I'm talking about being a teacher teacher.
Yeah, no, I haven't looked into that.
That might be a good idea.
Sorry, but the first thing that I would do, again, if I were in your shoes, is I'd say, okay, well, which philosophy of teaching do I most like?
And so there's a couple of options, right?
So if you like homeschooling, then you can set yourself up as a homeschool tutor, right?
Oh, yeah. Yeah. People get together with other families who are homeschooling and they call upon experts to come and teach their kids, right?
So you can do that kind of stuff.
There's tutoring, of course, but that's not going to give you the kind of constant contact, I think, with kids that you're looking for.
Yeah. I just want to work emotionally with kids.
I just want to be helping to contribute to a more peaceful life that they have.
Like directly. Well, let me see if I can clarify your statement for me, if not for you.
Please. I think you don't want to work emotionally with kids.
I think you want to teach them and you want to have emotional messed up-ness not in the way.
Yes. Does that make sense?
Like you said, you said you want to teach kids UPB. Well, I mean, of course, first and foremost, kids don't need to be taught UPB. They just need to have it.
You just need to get out of the way and help them refine it a bit.
Yeah. But you don't...
I mean, I don't think you want to be, you know, sort of a pseudo-child psychologist who's going to come in and make damaged kids better.
I mean, if I'm understanding it right, what you want to do is to help kids achieve their maximum potential, but not necessarily attempt to wrangle the walking wounded, if that makes sense.
Yeah. Yeah.
A facilitator of their learning, more than like an instructor.
Right. So... So then what I would say is, the first thing you need to look at is, okay, what kind of philosophy of education is most in line with my values?
Is it homeschooling? Is it Montessori?
Is it unschooling?
Is it... I don't know.
I mean, what do I know about these kinds of things?
But look into the philosophy.
There are various philosophies.
And, you know, the closest may be unschooling.
The closest may be homeschooling.
And then you can look into homeschooling associations in your area or unschooling associations in your area.
You know, you can find them, I'm sure, on the internet, Lickety Split.
And you can, they'll have meetings, right?
And you can go to one of their meetings.
And you can say, hi.
This is my experience. This is my skill set.
How do you guys find people to help your kids learn stuff?
Do you even do that? Or, you know, stuff that you may not know how to teach or stuff that you may not be that comfortable or don't have the time to teach.
How do you guys get experts in, and what's the schedule?
You can try that, and then you could be kind of entrepreneurial about that.
How cool would it be if I had learned philosophy well enough to teach it to elementary-aged or middle school-aged kids?
I think that there would be a real grab at that, to be honest.
I think it lights fire inside of people when you start talking about things philosophical.
If you set up homeschool philosophy, I mean, you could teach.
Of course, you could teach the kids.
You could set up a website with learning modules.
I mean, you could set up YouTube.
It can be the Socrates Khan Academy, whatever it is that you set up.
Oh, no, I'd link them to you. I'd link them to you.
No, I don't really do kids stuff.
That's a whole separate genre.
But the reality is that you could set yourself up in that space.
realm in that role and so that's a possibility that gives you a lot of entrepreneurial opportunities it gives you the opportunities for you know that the magic in in money making is not to be tied to hourly right I mean if you're a musician you put out an album you spend a hell of a lot of time in the studio and sometimes sometime touring and then a bunch of people buy your album and you just basically the money rolls in right yeah and so if you you sort of refine how it is that you're gonna teach kids philosophy Through teaching kids philosophy and then find out what works best and then turn that into a series of DVDs or videos or whatever.
Sorry? Yeah, like create a curriculum.
Right. And then that could...
I think that could be obviously lucrative, which is good, right?
I mean, money is good. But, you know, even more importantly than money, it can be a way for you to help kids to maintain their philosophical...
Intentions and experience and nature which they are born with.
Yeah, I'm definitely going to look into that.
I think that could be exciting because I even slipped some philosophy when I was doing the maternity leave and the kids love it.
Instantly hands shot up having the hardest day ever again because everybody's a part of this thing, you know?
Oh yeah, that matters to them.
I guarantee you.
Yeah, ethics a little less so, but I found metaphysics, epistemology, they're just kids are fascinated by that stuff.
How do you know it's true? You know, how do you know if I'm telling you that two and two make five, how do you know I'm lying?
Well, look, you can put two blocks there, and there are two blocks, right?
And so that you can get there really fascinated by that stuff.
Anyway, so that's another opportunity.
Of course, alternate to that, if you wanted to look into something else, then, you know, find the...
The cool thing is, is...
Go ahead....to be substituting...
I could be substituting and probably getting one, two days of work a week while simultaneously putting my time and effort into maybe developing a philosophy curriculum.
Right. Right. Right.
Right. And now, I mean, of course, yeah, a lot of homeschools, they are going to have an anti-authoritarian bent to them.
So I think philosophy can be very helpful with that.
So, you know, but the other thing, too, of course, you can look into schools in your neighborhood and, you know, look into the philosophies that they espouse and, you know, Just show up and take a teacher for lunch.
It sounds crazy, but who refuses free food from somebody who wants to pick their brain?
I know I don't. Take them for lunch and say, how did you get into it?
What do you like? What do you not like?
Did you teach at other places? What's your favorite place?
That kind of stuff. That can be really, really helpful.
Teach you looking forward.
You can talk to the principal. Whatever you...
Whatever you like. It's going to say, if there's any sort of parent collective meetup group where they're picking their kids up, just say, how do you like the school?
I'm thinking of teaching here, that kind of stuff.
Get the information. We so often fly blind or with our radar off.
You know, just about anybody you meet is going to be happy to give you a few minutes of their time, which can save you a lot of mistakes.
Yeah. Well, sort of what you're doing now, right?
You've saved me so many mistakes, man.
I really mean, you have no idea what an impact you've had, sincerely.
Great, great. So, yeah, so there are lots of other options.
Now, of course, right, so I recognize that I don't want to sort of set up a class thing here, which says the kids in the elite private schools have no mental health problems, right?
I'm not trying to say that.
But my guess is that there'll be a few hurdles that you won't have to face quite as much of.
So the kids in the richer private schools are likely to be coming from two-parent households.
Yeah. That makes a big difference.
Right there. That's it. Big difference.
Right there. And the parents are more likely to be involved in their kids' education.
As you know, public school is just a dumping ground for kids during the day.
Whereas if you're paying $20,000 a year for your school, you're going to be damn well involved in your kid's education, right?
Yeah, yeah, exactly. If I'm paying you to play the flute, my daughter would be able to play the flute.
Pay the damn flute. Except it's different here because, you know, I mean, if your kid's supposed to be learning algebra, the parents already know it, so the parents can check, right?
You can't teach your kid to play flute if the teacher ain't, but you can check on their homework in school.
So the parents are going to be more involved.
You know, that's a plus in some ways.
Of course, it can be a minus if in your philosophy courses or your philosophical aspect to your whatever it is that you teach, if you ruffle people's feathers, but, you know, you can just find a way to introduce things slowly and see what flies.
So, there's lots of information.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, God is dead.
Of his pity for man hath God died.
Go, kids! And that is on the syllabus.
Yeah, that is on the syllabus.
And if God ain't dead, we're going to dig him up and check.
Anyway, so I would, you know, really, really try and gather as much information.
If you find a school that is really close to your philosophy of learning, then, you know, just camp out, dig in, send applications, offer to assist in the classroom.
You know, if you're looking at the next 40 years of your life or the next 30 years of your life, volunteer.
For a month or two in the classroom.
See how it goes. See how the kids are.
That's the kind of stuff that's worth it.
Go on a couple of dates before you get married.
That's a wise thing to do.
In the careers where I've had some real success, it's all stuff that I've done before I went into that career.
When I was a coder, it was because I'd been coding from the age of 11 Onwards.
And so when I finally did it in my 20s, it was like, yeah, I already know I like this because I used to do it for free.
Same thing with podcasting, right?
Wait, you're going to pay me? Yeah, really?
Woo! Yeah, exactly.
I thought about being a coder many times, but I was like, you know what?
The kids that are coders are the kids that were doing it on their off time for fun.
They didn't code to get a job.
They just happened to get one because they liked it.
Right. Yeah, like the people who end up designing video games, the guys who did the mod packs for Quake for free for years, right?
And then they get picked up, so...
Yeah, so that would be my suggestion.
Look for places where the kids are likely to be less traumatized and look for situations where the parents are going to have a closer philosophy to the philosophy that I think is good philosophy, right, which is the reason and all that.
And that way you're going to have kids who are more in line with what?
I mean, you don't want to be the – if you can be an Olympic coach, you want good athletes.
You know, you want committed athletes who are going to train.
You don't want to be dragging people out of wheelchairs and throwing them, you know, on the racetrack.
And they don't even want to be there. And actually, to be quite honest, yeah, they're obviously already physically impaired.
Like, they need to have some other need met before they go play basketball or whatever they're going to do.
Right, right, right. So that would be, if you are, I mean, if you are philosophically inclined, then you are, in my mind, already an Olympic-caliber coach for kids.
And especially with the emotional work that you're doing, right, the self-consciousness, Of your interactions and the ownership and responsibility.
Just trying to do RTR. Yeah, I mean, that's super advanced for adults and super, super advanced for kids if they've not been exposed to it, which very few kids, of course, have.
So look upon yourself as an Olympic coach and say, okay, well, is Mozart going to be happy teaching piano to Captain Hook?
Well, no, right?
Yeah. No, no, not chopsticks again.
We must try something else.
Right. But I would say on the entrepreneurial side of things, and I'm guessing that your greatest success is going to be in the homeschooling or unschooling environment as an expert or teacher or tutor that can really help kids frame the world as it is in a philosophical way.
I mean, people who are homeschooling and unschooling, they already disagree with the system.
They're already thinking for themselves. They might have a very big philosophical wraparound for it, which I think they need.
And so I think you'd have the most to offer.
And of course, those are parents who are heavily involved in their kids' education, willing to think for themselves and all of that.
Just help the kid learn what he wants to learn, damn it.
That's pretty much all I want to do, is just facilitate that.
Right. Those would be my suggestions.
And, you know, don't be afraid to approach people and ask Ask them about their experience.
I think that's really important.
You simply can't know stuff before you know it and try to make a decision about what area to go in.
I wouldn't make the decision for a final, of course, not that any decision is final, but I wouldn't make it without talking to the homeschoolers, talking to a couple of teachers, doing some research on some schools.
Of course, this information can help you.
All of the schools around that you like, we get 100 applicants a day, and we don't hire more than two a year.
Then it'd be like, okay, that might fit for me, but that's not going to be something I'm likely to wedge my way in.
I would have a job guaranteed in the next five years if I continued to stay in this district, for sure, the principal told me.
I could sub and do something, and I'd have a guaranteed job in five years.
For a public school. Or, you know, I'd have to go, first of all, I'd have to go get another certification to be any sort of Waldorf or Montessori, but I'm fine with that.
And even then, they're pretty rare relative to other schools, too.
And so, like, I'm pretty sure I'd have to be open to moving across the country.
Well, again, let's not jump ahead of ourselves.
I mean, just gather information first, right?
I mean... Where are we now in the year?
I mean, you've got a couple of months before the end of the school year, right?
Two months? Yeah.
Three months. So, let's not say, oh, well, I don't want to move across the country.
You never know. You never know what's out there.
And it may be to move someplace you really want to be.
It's San Francisco. We teach on the pier.
I'm there! Right?
Yeah. Don't worry about jumping too far ahead.
Just be in the, you know, I always think like when I'm trying to make these kinds of decisions, I imagine myself I'm like a squid.
You ever see a squid moving across the coral?
Their tentacles are reaching into every nook and cranny and feeling their way forward.
That's how they move across, right?
Because they're searching for food and I'm sort of searching for a decision.
I got all eight tentacles out.
That's really what I'm trying to say.
Feeling a whole bunch of things before I figure out which way to go.
And then I end up inking myself.
But that's a different story.
Yeah. But I would just go into, you know, full-on exploratory mode and make that your part-time job to figure out.
And look, you may look at all options and you may find out that the way you are is the best, but at least you know it.
And that's a lot different.
But I would guess that something more entrepreneurial linked into the home or unschooling movement would be the way to go.
Yeah, I'm going to look into that, definitely.
And the Montessori. So, yeah, thank you.
Was that useful? I don't really have anything else to say.
Again, this is not even close to my field of expertise, but if I was sort of jumped into your shoes, that's what I would do.
Yeah, that's kind of... Well, first, if I were in your shoes, I'd first run my fingers through my thick, luscious hair, but...
Well, I really do appreciate it, and I want to see if I can't get a PayPal up and buy you lunch.
Oh, I would certainly appreciate that if you want.
It's not necessary, but if you found it useful, please feel free to donate.
Yeah, let me try to work that out.
I really appreciate it. I'm going to look into developing a curriculum I've never even thought of, and I never even thought of trying to inject myself in the homeschool community.
It just never even occurred to me.
You should. I mean, look, if you have the entrepreneurial abilities, and I'm guessing that you do, you want to get into a field where you can grow.
That ain't public school teaching, my friend.
There's no growth there.
There's no way to compare. I'm better than you.
Yeah, there's no reproducible income, there's no particular growth.
If you have the entrepreneurial spirit, Yeah, start off teaching kids in the homeschooling environment, develop a curriculum, publish it, DVDs, websites, subscription access, speeches, teach other teachers.
I mean, there's no limit to how far you can go, and frankly, there's no limit to how much good you can do in that kind of reproducible way.
To create material that is there to educate children until the end of freaking time.
I think that's a whole lot better than yelling at a classroom where everything vaporizes at the end of the day.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, very, very useful.
And how do I... What's the best way to go?
Just go to Free Domain Radio and just go to...
Oh, yeah, just Free Domain Radio.
I'm on a subscription for 10 a month, but...
Oh, I'm getting tipped! I'm very glad I didn't spit in your sandwich then, because they always make it.
Yeah, thank you. No, it's not as much as it's been worth, but when I get more money...
Hey, listen, I'm happy to help.
I'm happy to help. And, you know, if it gets more philosophy in front of kids, yay to the max.
All right. Well, thank you very much and have a nice night.
▲
Export Selection