"This Will Burn": connected to "Why Teach?" 6/23

page 23:  "Simple mistakes like teaching children that are too young or too old can destroy promising teachers."

Well, if you've been reading in order and following along, you know that a couple factors in choosing to become a teacher were:  1. enjoying helping people, 2. and wanting to follow in the footsteps of my mentor, Mr. Clark, by helping kids at difficult times in their lives.

Nevertheless, through high school, I fought the idea of teaching because the job market was terrible.  I loved German, and investigated careers as an interpreter or translator, but concluded only people who'd learned a language young from native speakers would ever be truly fluent.  By starting German in 7th grade and having no funds to go live in Germany, I'd always be second rate.  Who wants a career fated to be second rate?

Then I came back to that teaching idea, which had refused to go away; so the next logical choice was to teach German, but I could already see that German was on its way out.  Districts had one German teacher as opposed to a handful of French or Spanish teachers and dozens of English teachers.  I wanted a job.  I didn't want to go from college to unemployment.

So that left the teaching field wide open.  If not German,  what do I do?

I did a self-inventory and determined that I was probably afraid of teenagers with weapons, so I decided on elementary education.   Well, that was easy. 

After my freshman year of college, I got a summer job at a camp for people with handicaps, Camp Aowakiya (CA).  It no longer exists but was operated by Hiram House Camp, which is still around.  I got the job because I'd been volunteering at a CA daycamp near my home.  I was one of the older volunteers and had common sense.  A job at the CA resident camp opened up, and they asked the better daycamp volunteers if they were interested.

My folks were horrified.  Going across town AGAIN (like I had for college) to go live in a TENT with an OUTHOUSE and barely any running water?  And you've NEVER gone camping!  And the only experience you've had is the camping class you took for a phys ed credit!  Are you nuts?  But I thought I could do it, and I'd been offered a job, and I wanted to try. 

I loved it.  We  had mentally challenged people from age 7 to 60. Some were mildly handicapped, while others were very handicapped, lived in institutions and displayed very strange behaviors.  We worked in small groups of campers with a pair of counsellors, lived in tents, had meals trucked from Hiram House, had a mandatory sleep-out each session, and ended the night singing around the campfire.  Staff took 2-hour shifts through the night sitting by the campfire, keeping watch over the tents and escorting waking campers to the outhouse.  Whose slogan is "the hardest job you'll ever love"?  The Peace Corps?

The first five weeks were a thrilling adventure, working with groups of teens and adults; the sixth and final week, they gave me the little kids' group.  One kid was terrified of insects, and he'd pinch and slap himself whenever a bug came by.  (Parents, a good, loving decision to send him to a 24/7 outdoor camp.)  Other kids were just generally distracted, temperamental, and normal for special needs little kids.  But then there was Neddie (not his real name).  Neddie's file said he was a pyromaniac.  Hello?!  Aren't pyromaniacs common in movies but rare in real life?! And he's in my group of campers??!!

Neddie became my responsibility while the other counsellor took responsibilty for all the others.  Sure enough, Neddie spent the whole week picking up every scrap of paper or leaf off the ground. He'd turn to me and proudly show me his prize and say, "This will burn."  I never figured out if he was asking me or telling me.  It was eerie either way.  At the first campfire circle, Neddie was seated between the other counsellor and myself.  I had underestimated how fast a child can leap.  One second he was there.  The next second he was standing over the campfire tossing in twigs and debris.  The next second I was pulling him out, unscathed.

From then on, my hand was around Neddie's wrist during all waking hours.  He didn't seem to be a fire-starter at night.  Probably the sweet dreams of raging conflagrations were enough. 

The week wore on forever. "This will burn." And forever.  "This will burn." And forever.

Saturday came.  The camp was over, done, closed.  The tents were down and hauled away.  Most of the staff had already gone home.  Only a few of us were left. And guess whose parents were the last to come and pick up their child? 

Finally we watched Neddie drive off, perhaps wishing he could watch the sparks in the internal combustion engine.  Ironically Neddie was from my hometown,  aaaaaaaall the way across town.  But I never crossed paths with him again, never heard about any North Olmsted blazes started by a small child.  I wonder where he's at now, and if he's received any help.  I worked at that camp five summers, but never saw Neddie again, unlike many "regulars" who came year after  year.

Camp ended in the middle of August.  College resumed around the 27th or so.  In those few short days, I had figured out one thing:  I was not  meant to work with little kids.  Big scary teenagers?  Bring 'em on.  Give me somebody with a Formal Operations mind.  Give me somebody who doesn't cry over an untied shoe. 

(And I didn't know then what I understand now.   I didn't understand that after my dad died when I was four, I had grown up instantly. I wasn't ever really a child myself, so working with little children does not come naturally.)

I'm so grateful that I learned early what I was not suited for.  Otherwise, there would have been an awful lot of wasted elementary course work and replacement secondary classes to take.  Like Kohl's warning about finding the right age group, I have conferred with friends and recognized that we're each cut out for a different age or situation.  Finding the place where you fit is crucial . . . so that you don't get "burned."   (Ouch, couldn't resist the pun!)

Kohl, Herbert. "Why Teach?" Educational Foundations: An
     Anthology of Critical Readings. Ed. Bruce A. Marlowe and Alan S.
     Canestrari. 2nd ed. Los Angeles: Sage, 2010. 21-31. Print.