Yes, I am an English Major...

...No, I don't want to teach.

But for some reason, all my relatives and friends have decided that it is my destiny to teach. And that I will be an unfulfilled shell of a person until I decide to embrace that destiny. It doesn't matter that, for the past few years, I have successfully worked in a field completely unrelated to teaching.

So, once and for all, here is my rant about why I can't teach:

Elementary School: We had this extremely terrifying system at my elementary school called Lunch Monitoring. Basically, one 12-year-old (me) was left in charge of 25 8-year-olds for an hour every day. These 8-year-olds soon realized that I had no real authority over them, and immediately went Lord of the Flies. After several days of ineffectual threats and shouting, I left them to their brawling, closed the door, and hoped the principal wouldn't walk by. So really, if I can't even prevent kids from trashing the place, how am I supposed to teach them to read?

High School: Are you serious? You want me to go back to a place that 90% of adults are still traumatized by? A place where a kid's popularity is directly related to how little they study?

University: At least by now, you've weeded out the kids who think they're too cool for homework. You are left with former high school nerds who are excited to be finally accepted by their classmates. The Honours Society even sells t-shirts. Sounds like a perfect environment for a teacher, right? Wrong. Many of these nerds, drunk on their new-found power, go too far and attempt to overthrow the professors. No matter what class you are in, there will always be one.

"Does this relate to early Russian constructivism?"

"Can you compare that to the Foucauldian principle of Confusing-Everybody-With-Big-Words-For-No-Apparent-Reason-Just-Because-I'm-A-Jackass?"

Thanks but no thanks.

ESL: "It's so easy!" you say. "You just talk to people all day!" Um, yeah. Me and all the other awkward social misfits in the room just ran away to hide. You'll never find us.

"But," you may suggest, "what if you just tried teaching - maybe in 5 or 6 years you'd learn to enjoy it!" So you're saying that, out of all the thousands of careers in the world, I should pick the very one that I am determined not to pick, and spend the rest of my life trying to pound a square peg into a round hole?

Maybe a metaphor would help. Would you find a boyfriend or girlfriend by hitting on the person you find least attractive?

Anyways, I greatly admire those people that like teaching and are good at it. Why don't we help make the world a better place - leave the teaching to them, and leave me out of it!