Here's the real issue, I am good at everything I do. Usually. If it's all about the production curve and my ass inhabits the 70th percentile as a default position. Unless the task is painting. I get into doing a great job painting and worrying about brushwork and what the finished product will look like and soon the sun is going down or I am out of beer. It is easy to zone in on that repetitive, easily sloppy and delicate work. The best painters are the ones who prep and that requires sanding and taping and moving of furniture and so many things that just slow your painting time down. Lets not get into spackle and drywall and pre-painting aond things it is better to hire some workers from outside the home depot to do for you and cheaper and faster than your top speed. There are some things that make your back sing out in agony. That's why u need to hire a helper or two. Some idiots, like me, will work for a case of beer and lunch and be very happy to take a few bucks along as a reward for a hard days work. I was always the one people called when moving out of town. Then the calls stopped coming. I had moved all of my friends away from me, because I'm helpful and shit.
Being good at everything means losing respect for the process of getting better at things. The focus and attention that it takes to get to the mastery level is the best part of the trip that is life. If your marriage is your life and then your kids are, you must put your best efforts there and that is why my dad was painting houses and teaching school at the same time. I was a hungry baby. Somewhere along the line you have to commit to work outside of your life which then intrudes on your life and then becomes your life. That's what teaching does to you. It keeps nibbling at you free time because if you are a reflective practitioner of the art of pedagogy it means getting out there and walking those gogs of yours, everyday. It means putting yourself in the shoes of your clients and out-thinking your lesson plans, finding the errors in your thinking, establishing a way of making miniscule and intangible improvements in human beings the coin of the realm. How did you help them today? I helped by mailing in another four pages of the social studies text which in it's newest edition is de-emphasizing the role of Crispus Attucks in the revolutionary was by changing his font. Why? That's got to be the book. The additional text which touches on editing and why it is done and for what reason. That turns into a lesson for the kid's own writing and what extra emphasis means and why it is done. The truly radical children can be tantalized into exploring the text for more of the same. The "d for degree" kids can be given a simple outline to follow with daily and weekly point totals. maybe Bi-weekly is the best way to do this to allow the teacher to have time to follow up on these things. Points awarded for peer review and peer revision and soon one or two kids are ghost-writing for the entire class and getting good at writing quantities of verbs and these are the ones that are put into your novel writing program.
youth fiction co-operative. yeah. the new coal mines. Run it out of Middle Schools with follow ups programs including gardening and sports on neglected playgrounds. The city does not want to neglect, they just have bad spending habits. Establish a new work rate and divide your bosses up. Freelance substitute teaching. Invite me in and your magazine will follow. A magazine based on your school. Write one for Wanamaker, write one for Gillespie and print them out as if they are the real deal. Print them out and try to sell them somewhere. as a screenplay or something. teachers selling candy and throwbacks are ok. my racism is not. ok, ok. Since it was the issue which derailed me, let's turn it into my money-making machine. lemonade for thirsty racists, yeah.
