March 19th, 2009|11:13am.
So, yesterday I had the interesting experience of running a discussion in 4 high school English classes, despite having no English or education degree. Is this a sign of lowered teaching standards in our public schools? Maybe, but more likely it is a result of me being friends with some English teachers at my old high school.
Liz, who I've known since 3rd grade, is teaching at Cary Grove now and when she told me that she was teaching The Fountainhead I got really excited and wanted to discuss it with her. As we started talking about it more I thought it would be really cool to come into her classes and have a discussion with her kids about the book. She thought it was a pretty good idea and ran it past the department chair, Mrs. Quick, who was my teacher for The Fountainhead back when I was in school. She thought it was a good idea too and asked if I'd speak in her classes as well.
I took the day off of work yesterday and went into ol' CG to try my hand at shaping young minds. It was a really interesting and fun experience. Such a change of pace from my days typically filled with technical stuff. As expected, there were a small handful of kids in each class that really wanted to have a discussion, but it was definitely worth while. In between periods where I was running discussions I sat in on some of Holter and Anderson's classes. It was pretty amusing to watch them teach. Anderson told his kids that I was a rehabilitated convict looking to get into teaching. I told the kids that I was convicted of armed robbery and manslaughter. Freshman will believe anything.
The whole day was really fun and hopefully I'll be able to do it again next year. I really miss discussing books in an academic environment and Ayn Rand books are some of my favorite to discuss.
Will you please be a teacher? :)