Kids Forever
I decided to explore my thirty year career in today’s entry. Mostly because I want there to be some context when I write about education, children, business, capitalism, parents, and every other topic I have experience with resulting from my professional journey.
I started teaching in 1997. To give you some perspective…it was the year that the movie Titanic graced the big screen. While Jack was courting Rose (up until the point he froze to death in the Atlantic) I was in my initial year of classroom teaching, getting my butt kicked by a bunch urban fourth graders. Titanic actually ended up being an ironic metaphor for the type of year I expected, verse the type of year it ended up being. Yet, all these years later I can look back and have an adult perspective on the situation and realize it was a valuable experience in my life for so many reasons. As not only did it give me a chance to learn about myself as a teacher, but the experience also gave me my first glimpse at a grossly flawed educational system at a local and state level, and an interesting look at how social politics in a place of employment outweighs everything else, including the education of children.
I taught eleven more years at the elementary level…every grade from first grade all the way up to eighth grade math. Private, public, rural, urban, and suburban. I also taught adult education classes at night where wannabe nurses would come back to master basic algebra in order to qualify for the nursing program. Though children are my stronger suit, the adults were pretty fun as well.
After fully realizing that our educational system is akin to kid prison, and that the most enlightened teachers in the field are isolated and ostracized for striving to rise above mediocrity, I left and started my own business, TSL Adventures, which, fourteen years later still thrives with multiple daycares, school-age programs, and summer camps throughout capital region New York.
Of course, there are a billion and one stories to be told along with much commentary about the experiences I have had, and you can sure bet I’ll be telling each one in random order in upcoming entries because as much as my experiences with various bureaucracies, co-workers, and traditionalism have only half-impressed me over the years, one thing that has always impressed me was the nature of children and child development. I have always put this at the forefront of all my endeavors and have met thousands of amazing kids over the years through business, teaching, and other means. So, to find something to be consistently amazed by year after year has been a great pleasure…like writing stories!
So when you see upcoming entries in the areas of all things children, education, childcare, families and business you will have some perspective as to where all of my wisdom and knowledge in these areas stems from.
For now, go watch Titanic and think of me teaching about cells by having children make cell cakes (yeah) just as the boat hits the iceberg. (The cakes did taste good, especially the candy nucleus).