Hey y’all, I’m back. Sort of. The reason I’m writing a new post after so long is because I was checking an old email address I had for my WordPress account (which I don’t check often enough), and was pleasantly surprised when WP alerted me that in 2023 and so far in this year, the views for my eight years old ‘Jack of All Trades’ post shot up out of the blue. Relatively speaking of ‘internet views’ for an online article it’s not much, but the upsurge compared to the past was worth noting. And it says most have come from Google Searches regarding the topic “Jack of All Trades”, and made me think perhaps I should talk about where I’m at with it since then.
For starters, most who originally read this blog are friends and family so this won’t be much of a surprise to them, but I’ve been in Austin for over eight years now and enjoying my time as a high school Social Studies teacher since Feb 2019 (I was also a substitute teacher August 2018- Feb 2019). For some who read my first Jack of All Trades post this could be seen as a let down when I was espousing my music media writing abilities and desire for freelance journalism. Working for the deep state, telling the youth to get in line, profiting from the property taxes of gentrifiers lining my purse every two weeks; all might not be what ‘freelance’ me thought he’d be involved in back in 2016. But I can say that teaching is actually a great place for JOATs because it requires a lot of different skills down a variety of avenues. And you’re never bored or out of things to use your myriad of skills on. Lecturer, over the shoulder tutor, project planner, curriculum writer, social worker, crisis counselor, data entry and data analysis specialist. It’s like 10 jobs in one which would terrify a lot of people but based on my previous ‘Jack of All Trades’ declaration, it actually suits me. If I just stood there all day lecturing notes from a screen to the sound of scratching pencils I’d be bored and exhausted, but if I just sat there solely punching in numbers or having Zoom meetings all day I’d be watching that desktop clock in day end expectation.
Yet, I still feel like “I’m coming out” by saying this, and that is….. I love being a teacher. There I said it. I know lately there’s social media “I quit” vids from teachers or clips on the news now of them setting their class on fire and flippin’ off kids and admin as they drive away, but I occasionally feel like a minority who genuinely enjoys what he does. I didn’t start teaching until the 2019-2020 year, so I didn’t really experience a true pre-covid classroom. What things are like right now is my only experience of a US high school. So perhaps that’s why I don’t have the cynicism that some long serving teachers who started in a remoteless, phoneless classroom have.
And is it hard: Yes. Is it long hours: Yes. Does it absorb almost all of your mental and physical energy: Yes. But it’s thoroughly rewarding. It’s much nicer putting in all that time and effort when I know it’s for educating my students in history and in life (and some of them I’ve connected with so much that I wouldn’t hesitate to sign their adoption papers). You can develop a love for them like they are your own flesh and blood. You become like a dad to some of them. And getting those little thank you cards from students at the end of the year after all you did for them is a priceless feeling.
Buuuut, I will admit that in my first year I did feel like I was drowning in a pot of molten hot lava, with mid-term 9th grade World Geographers completely ignoring that I exist as they wandered my playground of a classroom. However, I got a little better at it each year. It probably wasn’t helped that to become a teacher I had quickly taken an adobe flash online course, watched a few teachers take summer school classes at one school and took some notes, then not long after was thrown without experience into said mid-term melting pot of a class that had three months left of the year after their original teacher split on them. So I can’t say the kids were happy to see me and I don’t blame them to be honest. Though in some ways starting my first official year of 2019-2020 wasn’t any better. It was a false sense of ‘quiet class’ security before their hidden demonic selves were unleashed. In fact, Covid kind of saved my teaching career. I was prepared to grind it out until the end of May, but mid March onwards I got the break I needed, and was able to regroup my broken brainstems. Asynchronous teaching for two and a half months was actually pretty sweet. I must confess tax payers, I did spend one whole day just playing Star Wars: Rebellion, but the vast majority of the time was spent preparing online lessons til the early hours because I would procrastinate beforehand. One student did point out to me that it said 2am on the clock when I did my live lesson recording. Trust me, I worked very hard and got everything done and graded more than I really needed to. But we were often told to not give them more than three lessons a week, so playing a game or getting better at guitar was actually to fill in the time before assignments were turned in.
“So wait, why are you saying all of this? I thought you liked teaching? This sounds strange and terrible”. Well, after we came back I had time to recuperate, and in a few years was granted my niche as a 10th grade World History teacher. I fit well with that age group, history was my college/uni major and my favorite subject at high school, and I’m also now the leader of the World History team which is crazy(!) AND about to start my 6th year teaching in a few weeks. So despite a rocky start and world pandemic interruptions, I feel much more confident in what I do and enjoy it. I’m not perfect by ANY means (random admin class evaluations still have me sweating with anxiety). I have a long, long way to go to be considered distinguished, but I’m in the right place for my Jack of All Trades personality (throwing in some Kiwi Ingenuity), and can’t imagine doing any other job in the future. I may write more of these, but when students have googled my name before I’m the only Joel Greatbatch on the internet, and this is usually the first hit, but maybe I can threaten them that if they mess me around in class I’ll totally talk about them on my blog >:)
thekiwicowboy.com 