The importance of educating youth

There are old sayings in the educational world pertaining to the value of teachers. A lot of them try to convey the point that it doesn't matter if you are a math, English or science teacher, it’s the example that you set for your students, regarding your attitudes, morals and behaviour that really counts. Case in point:

Augustine had a really nice grade 9 science class who generally worked hard and challenged themselves learning about the World of Science – all except little Prairie Dawn. Sadly, little Miss Dawn talked too much with her friends, stayed out too late, didn’t do her homework and ate too many sugary snacks (that is teacher speak for being an annoying little $#@%).

That day Augustine was handing back the first science test of the year and most of the children did well, all except for Miss Dawn. As words of encouragement/warning, Augustine stated that as this was their first high-school science test, many of them would have lower marks than usual and if any of them had very poor marks (said while casually glancing at Prairie Dawn) it meant that they had to work harder, as getting good grades in school was important for their future.

After hearing this Prairie Dawn exclaimed at the top of her lungs, “Don’t worry Sir! I’ll marry rich!” Her subservient peers found this statement quite amusing, and looked to me for my retort.

“Ahhhhh Prairie Dawn,” I began “If you were to marry rich, who do you think would control the money in the household?”

Prairie Dawn didn’t anticipate this answer and I soon added in comments about the nature of relationships, how spouses could manipulate each other as well as being in marriage for the right reasons.

My little speech on the matter went on for a few minutes – and I think I genuinely had convinced Prairie Dawn that marrying for money wasn’t such a good idea – so I decided to drive one final point home to my class:

“Well class, I hope you now understand the dangers of marrying for money. I don’t think any of you will have to worry about it though … you are all far too ugly.”

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I love my job.