There's quite a discussion going on JoanneJacobs.com about an essay that the Washington Post published recently on the Mexican teaching system. Apparently when a teacher dies, their children have first dibs on the job. At first I thought this made no sense. But then I realized that this is a unique -- if problematic -- way of guaranteeing that a good teacher's wisdom and experience lives on in the classroom.

Of course, if my father were a dentist, it wouldn't mean I was qualified to drill teeth by virtue of being his progeny. The logic is skewed.

But I do know many teachers whose parents were employed as teachers. I say "employed as" because at root, all parents teach their children SOMETHING. And I have to admit that teaching does bring the parent out from inside me, from time to time. Along with my previous teachers' voices, I often hear my parents' voices inside my own when I deal with students. Likewise, they often project their own relationships with their parents on to me (pro and con). Teaching is a vocation where our upbringing can show its hand, because we engage in human interactions and issues that require us to draw upon sources inside of us that can't always be planned (or "trained" in preparation for). A lot of what we "intuit" in the classroom or in the office consultation comes from searching the experiences we had with role models in authority positions, and more often than not, parents unconsciously wind up in the mix.

Just thinking out loud... It's summertime. I'm childless, but if I had kids, I'd be playing with them. Or observing their learning, as my colleague, Dennis Jerz, seems to be doing as he writes about the trials and tribulations of his son's music education.

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