Love to Learn, Learn to Love.

JuicyLesson 229: Teacher Rap … Fear and Loathing at Bialik … Part I …

Featured today is a photo taken in N.Y. Thanks, Matthew.

PART I
This is for you, some of you, whose respect and affection I once had, but for some reason, maybe because of the different lifestyle choices we have each made, I no longer enjoy. This obvious deterioration in our relationship has forced me to question why. Why should I have to re-earn your respect? I haven’t changed that much but some of you have, and not for the better I’m afraid. This is for you.

We each make our own decisions and choices in life and then we live with their consequences. Overall, I am a happy gentleman, and although I do have my enemies, I have some good friends, from many walks of life and across the age spectrum, to shield and protect me from the venom of fools and bastards. I have been told that I am kind and good and let’s go with that. For now. At least.

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When I knew you as your teacher, I smoked in my spare time and did a slew of recreational drugs, ending up badly three times – as a result of I guess what you could call overdoses – of THC, MDA, and LSD. The last event, for those of you keeping score, occurred more than 35 years ago, just before I started my career at Bialik, which brings me around to saying, right at this very moment in time, as well as in retrospect, that I am satisfied with how my professional life has panned out and coalesced overall especially with regard to my career at Bialik, even though it did have its ups and downs. But what career doesn’t?

Show me someone who’s problem free in his working life as a teacher and I’ll show the almost perfect teacher, a pure professional, M. Yves Rouillard. I personally feel that perhaps he was feared by his students a little too much but who am I to say?

Except for him, we have all had our trials and tribulations which is what happens when you’re not your own boss. That is not to say that bosses are stress free, because we all have someone to whom we must answer; but, ultimately we must remain answerable to ourselves. That must be a difficult challenge for those of us who are not sans conscience but it is incredible the games the mind can play to enable us to engage in cover-up.

The Jewish private school in Montreal has to be included in the overall equation since I spent about 24 years there, of a career which lasted a total of thirty-four years.
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Everything was cool. Loved my students, did the job very, very well, and with passion – lots and lots of passion – enjoyed myself, one of the pillars of the school as David, a well-respected teacher of maths, once described me, and, he went on, “they treated you like shit.” This unsolicited comment was made by David upon meeting me by chance while we were both doing our shopping.

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“Let us not talk falsely now, the hour’s getting late.”

Jimi Hendrix “All Along the Watch Tower (with lyrics)
http://youtu.be/gVjezsQfrW0

Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr, George Harrison, et al, Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony for Harrison, 1988. “All Along the Watch Tower”
In my opinion, six minutes of pure, unadulterated brilliance …

We’ll continue with this philosophical discussion tomorrow.

That’s it. Peace.

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