Great Buzz


Or How I Spent my Wednesday and Thursday

I'm not a teacher in the formal sense. Especially not with kids. I don't always have the patience with the slower students.

But every once in a while, someone calls me to talk to kids. Since I used to be a Corporate Clone, I can tell kids how to handle their first job interview. Since I am a history buff, I can tell them about the bits their history books skip over. Since I am a movie buff, I can tell them about great films they have never seen.

And every once in a while under the most unusual circumstances, the fact that I am Pagan means I can tell them about non-mainstream religions. That one is really iffy on a number of levels and I don't do it very often.

When any of this happens, I consider it my sacred duty to bend the kid's brains. I do everything I can to get them to think and question their assumptions. I tell them it's not enough to do something just because Someone in Authority told them to do it. I tell them that there are always consequences, and it's their job to find out what those consequences are.

Sometimes it takes, sometimes it doesn't.

Maybe once a year, one of the kids I have talked to before asks me on their own to talk to them and a few friends about almost anything. That's even more dicey. I almost never talk about religion or sex in that context, and I always do it in a public spot away from their house or mine. It usually ends up costing me some pizza and a few rounds of soda.

But the buzz I get from those kids makes it all worth it. Makes me even wonder if I should have become a teacher.

Oh, about the "almost never." The exceptions have been the emergencies, and there haven't been very many of those, thank the gods.

Posted: Fri - December 28, 2007 at 02:47 PM
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