2013-10-06, 12:48 AM
Thank you for well wishes 
I hope you find a job helping others - that is a noble goal.
As far as what I meant about teaching being too "political", it's rather complicated (like all political things). But in the US, education is mostly handled by the state's government. A few years back, one of our presidents started a program called "no child left behind". It offered a lot of money to local schools, but imposed strict minimum test scores for students and difficult tests for new teachers. The teacher tests required them to have broad knowledge about field that weren't relevant to particular field - for example, an English teacher would need significant mathematics knowledge to become a teacher.
And if a class of students scored too low on their new tests, most school districts would fire the teacher. Because of this, teachers don't teach "knowledge" as much as teach students how to pass the tests. It's not uncommon for teachers to actually give their students the answers to tests so their scores will be high enough for the teacher to keep their job. There is also a lot of soap-opera backstabbing that goes on in local school districts. Since schools are paid based on child attendance, kids are handled like a commodity instead of being taught as valuable individual beings. Politicians regularly go on witch hunts trying to pin the blame for poor student performance on someone in order to bolster their own career. Not all school districts are that bad, but it's very hard to find a job opening in good districts.
In these days of smartphones, and single parent homes, many students are highly distracted and quite disrespectful. It's very hard to teach kids who think they already have all the answers. Like I said, it's complicated! 
I hope you find a job helping others - that is a noble goal.As far as what I meant about teaching being too "political", it's rather complicated (like all political things). But in the US, education is mostly handled by the state's government. A few years back, one of our presidents started a program called "no child left behind". It offered a lot of money to local schools, but imposed strict minimum test scores for students and difficult tests for new teachers. The teacher tests required them to have broad knowledge about field that weren't relevant to particular field - for example, an English teacher would need significant mathematics knowledge to become a teacher.
And if a class of students scored too low on their new tests, most school districts would fire the teacher. Because of this, teachers don't teach "knowledge" as much as teach students how to pass the tests. It's not uncommon for teachers to actually give their students the answers to tests so their scores will be high enough for the teacher to keep their job. There is also a lot of soap-opera backstabbing that goes on in local school districts. Since schools are paid based on child attendance, kids are handled like a commodity instead of being taught as valuable individual beings. Politicians regularly go on witch hunts trying to pin the blame for poor student performance on someone in order to bolster their own career. Not all school districts are that bad, but it's very hard to find a job opening in good districts.
In these days of smartphones, and single parent homes, many students are highly distracted and quite disrespectful. It's very hard to teach kids who think they already have all the answers. Like I said, it's complicated!