Why I Quit Teaching Third Grade
OK, I didn't exactly quit. A week ago, I finished my nine-month tenure as "Mr. Becker" to Owen, Carolyn, Meghan, Priska, Anya and Morgan. But I won't return in September. Teaching 3rd Grade was kind of like my Little League career: I stuck it out one season, but I didn't play the next year. When I told my wife last July that I could pinch-hit at Poiema School (now Ambleside School of Lancaster), she thought it was a grand idea. Working for my own spouse notwithstanding, the experience was priceless. She'll tell you I did a valiant job. I'll tell you I worked my butt off.
It's not that I don't like little kids. In fact, students at this age are quite delightful. They are in that season before bras, boy/girl drama and the relentless pursuit of Cool. "Everything is awesome," according to their much-quoted Lego Movie.
I can be very childlike too, especially in the department of silly fun. Our school, however, is affiliated with Ambleside Schools International, a Charlotte Mason-inspired movement that demands a high level of care on the part of its teachers.
Mason was a prolific, Victorian era educator from the Lake District in England. She believed that children are persons made in God's image and that education is
the science of relationships,
the creation of an atmosphere,
the cultivation of habits and
the engagement of ideas, principally from great texts.
After a few months of finding my way in the teaching philosophy, I told our ASI teacher trainer why I planned to retire after one season. "I just don't Care." Notice the capital "C." To describe all human occupations the Greeks had a single word, Techne, for which there is no English equivalent. "It may thus be said to cover any skilled activity with its rules of operation, the knowledge of which is acquired by training." You can hear technique: work that involves training, seeks mastery and demands Care. I do care about great literature. We read The Railway Children, The Bible, History of the Pharaohs, National Geographic Dinosaurs, and T.S. Eliot's Cat poems, to name a few. Sublime. I also care about basic skills: I enjoyed teaching math, phonics, spelling, transcription and reading. I saw even the weakest kids in these areas make progress under my tutelage. And I certainly care about the families we serve and the cultural impact a school like ours will have in the coming years. It goes without saying I care for those six kids and find myself still praying for them. My only consolation is that I'll see most of them around town or in church. But teachers must care for more than individuals or the various parts of a school. They have to Care about education as an art, as a techne. Exhibit A is the contrast between Becky and me: She is a master teacher. This couldn't be plainer. I was struggling this year to bat 175; she was knocking two-run homers out of the park on her weakest days. Where Care meets needs around us, there is a sweet spot we experience that reminds we were carefully created to do a certain kind of work well. As 28-year teaching veteran Scott C. Lowe says in the recent Bloomsburg University Magazine, college graduates
view work simply as a means to an end, a way to earn a good salary in order to do the other things in life that they value….I worry about what is lost in doing so: the sense of belonging to a profession or occupation and the recognition that work is an important part of "This is who I am."
If I felt teaching 3rd Grade was my sweet spot, I would still be on the roster for next year. For the sake of the children, we're scouting for a master teacher. I'll gladly cheer loudly from the bleachers of Ambleside School, serve as Board President, and pinch-hit occasionally. I will support the Principal with whom I share a house. (What choice do I have?)! I'm excited to pour my energies back into what I Care about most: Hosting The Row House Forum, booking concerts, teaching classes for young adults on culture and faith, and developing online media that builds bridges between the Church and people of all kinds in Lancaster city. So, you see I didn't quit, really. And if you got this far, you didn't quit reading. Good job.