From the Cubicle to the Classroom
My name is Travis Martin. I am 29 years old, and I am an idiot. I wasn’t always an idiot, though. In the old days when I went to work, people would listen to me. They respected me, my credentials, and my opinions. I was a CPA at a large public accounting firm. The initials at the end of my name were enough to garner a certain amount of respect from most anyone I crossed paths with.
Then something happened. After four years of juggling the endless minutia of tax forms, financial statements and audit reports, I started to wonder what in the hell I was doing with my life.
Clients were no longer people; they were random names affixed to manila folders and faceless voices on the other end of a phone line.
Seasons were no longer defined by the weather, but by the type of job I was working on. Spring was tax season. Fall and winter were audit season. Summer was a blur of loose ends and unfinished jobs.
Co-workers shuffled into and out of the firm, leaving little evidence that they were ever there in the first place. I felt like a cog in a machine, counting my life away in fifteen minute increments using the firms’ billing software.
It all seemed pointless.
I wanted more. I wanted creativity. I wanted spontaneity. I wanted to change the world. I decided I wanted to be a high school teacher. That was five years, thirty-six graduate credit hours in Education, and $12,000 in tuition ago.
Unfortunately, somewhere between the cubicle and the classroom I became an idiot.
The Idiot Chaperoning at the Senior Prom in 2006
Parents with no training in business or education questioned my teaching methods and qualifications. Principals tracked my every move from afar, demanding copies of my lessons, tests, gradebooks, and syllabi while seldom stepping foot into my room. Students accused me of a litany of offenses, including losing their homework, miscalculating their grades and generally ruining their lives. Co-workers held secret caucuses to discuss the environment inside my classroom.
This year I will be beginning my fourth year as an idiot. I am guessing some of your teachers, or your children’s teachers, are idiots too.
It’s not all our fault though.
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Prior to the beginning of this school year, I decided to keep a journal to document my day-to-day experiences as a high school teacher. The above post, along with the posts The Legend of Mr. Tooters and Weiner, AR – The Capital of Adolescent Humor, are excerpts from my journal. Future excerpts from the journal will be posted under the tag Rotten Apples. I hope to have the entire journal finished and ready to submit for publication by August 2009.
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