What do you wanna do with your life?

Remember this?

What have we here, laddie? Mysterious scribblings? A secret code? No! Poems, no less! Poems, everybody!The laddie reckons himself a poet! “Money get back / I’m all right, Jack / Keep your hands off my stack / New car / Caviar / Four star daydream / Think I’ll buy me a football team.” Absolute rubbish, laddie…. Get on with your work. – Pink Floyd

Not allowing kids to dream, wonder or think. Reflecting on my experience in school was similar to this (from Pink Floyd The Wall) frequently I’d be discouraged to succeed in life by my teachers, as long haired  leather jacket ‘rocker’ teachers loved pigeon holing me as dumb. A trouble maker. A failure. How awesome is it that I’m a teacher now. And a good one I think (hope).

I think we all remember that one teacher from high school who influenced us. Reached us. .. Learners need our support. Our encouragement. Its our job to help learners find their passion.Growing up with this silly Twisted Sister video below  resonated with me. It is ridiculous but made me think. It funny on many levels. As a student in secondary I never did homework. Never. Why?  Teachers could never justify the need. I always got excellent grades. My folks didnt mind much so long as I got good grades which I did.

Now I’m a father of a pre teenage daughter and we’ve had this conversation’ What do you want to do with your life’? Its such a poor question to ask. The answer is simple. I (we) don’t know (yet). It’s a great answer. How can we expect kids to know what they want to do if we don’t let kids experience things for themselves. How can he expect them to know what they want until they are ready, or have something to base their decisions on. Make their own choices, good or bad.  As a teacher this makes sense. As a father this is scary. Very scary. But being there to help with good, and especially bad decisions is what we need to be doing.

Perhaps my dislike for my own education (or lack of ) drives me to change it.

So get on with your work..repeat after me ‘An acre is the area of a rectangle whose length is one furlong and whose width is one chain….’ – Pink Floyd