Ah, education. The noblest of pursuits. Teaching and molding the minds of future generations. And thanks to Jack Black's iconic character in School of Rock, we have this comedic gem about one of the most dignified (yet underappreciated) of callings.

There are many misconceptions about becoming a teacher. One is that it is easy. When talking about teachers, one of the first things mentioned is how nice it is that they essentially get paid leave over the summers. That is idiotic and wrong. Please don't be idiotic AND wrong. Most days I try to only be one of those things. Teachers prepare for the next school year during summers, and finally take a break from all of the work that they must do during the school year. Remember all those papers that you had to write in your English classes? Well, English teachers have to read all of your papers and all of your classmates’ papers. And don't forget the papers of their other classes that they teach. That is not especially easy.

Anyway, to get back on topic...

Yes, teaching is hard. And while it is extremely rewarding (as any teacher who is actually decent at their job will tell you), there are times when the work is overwhelming. Teaching is not a career that one should strive for if they 1) don't love it, and 2) aren't willing to work hard. None of these reasons scared me away from being an Education Major in college as I originally intended. I love all of these things. I even still intend on teaching. No, the issues I had were much more complicated.

Last year, sophomore year of college, was when the requirements outside of Education classes amped up. The governmental requirements for those in Education programs are redundant, impractical, useless, and dysfunctional. The number of times I was frustrated with the amount of paperwork I had to fill out and meetings I had to go to (outside of the two education courses I was already enrolled in) was ridiculous. And I wasn't the only one. Most of my peers saw the hoops that we were told to jump through as irrelevant to our growth as educators. This was all problematic, of course, but it still was not what made me want to drop out of the Education program.

What I really disliked—what I really hated about the education program was that I felt like I was wasting my time. Many of the classes focused on things that I personally thought were common sense. Yeah, of course, there were things that I learned from my professors, but it was only when we were not working on planned lecture and the class was able to ask our professors real questions about the real world of teaching. There is a set of specifically required criterion for Education students, and most of it just gets in the way of real learning. I always learned more from my placements in secondary school classrooms than I did in my college classes.

While I am bitter about this, I really feel sadness more. I wish that the issues regarding the way we teach teachers was addressed; maybe if they were, our students would be taught better and more prepared for the world. I suppose it's more of a systemic problem, really. And I think the worst part is that there is no easy solution to this problem. I don't see any way that this can be fixed unless we fix the way we view education and even teachers themselves.