Reply #50: I've Worked With Kids All My Life [View All]

[DrFunkenstein]

During college summers, I used to be recreation director of a playground in my hometown (the kind of industrial suburb New Jersey jokes are made of). I later went to grad school, but I don't think the academic life really suited me. People take themselves VERY seriously, which is hilarious since no one really pays them any attention. Kids are cooler. They're less full of crap.

So now I'm trapped between a Ph.D. program with no end in sight and a school system that pulled the rug from under me. Since I've come to complete impasse with the grad committee regarding my dissertation, I'll probably end up pulling out with just a Masters, and get my full teaching certification in elementary education instead (I'm "alternate route" now).

Who knows, maybe I'll teach at the college level again down the road. The actual teaching part is fun, but they usually want you to focus more on research that brings in money for the university. I do sometimes miss the intellectual rigor of the university, but teaching kids is much more emotionally satisfying. Therein lies the dilemma. Whether 'tis nobler to follow the head or the heart.

What a strangely confessional post. I probably should delete it, but what the hell. This will be the "secret origin of DrFunkenstein" post.