Stephanie,
First, away with the business at hand: I have not really befriended anyone enough in class to have partnered up with them for the writing workshop. Do you know of anyone sans partner who I could ask to read my essay and comment on it?
Now for the more friendly conversation! (Note from the bottom of this letter: really, I started this letter just wanting to be friendly and ask your opinion on the idea explained in the following sentence. It ballooned quite a bit.) How possible to you think it is that my friends (one who works with mentally and emotionally disturbed children and one who will likely own a Tae Kwon Do school in a few years) and myself to open up a Montessori school or a day care? I would much rather actually run a school where I am educating the youth of America, living that ever so noble dream of bettering the world, but have been led to believe that creating a school (even preschool-3, our intended grade levels) required a great deal more than I can currently handle. More or less this stems from the fact that I feel... kind of lost. I have a stern dislike for most other secondary education majors, especially after hearing my Foundations class (though not the teachers) praise a girl who insisted that she hated reading and writing with the fiery hot passion of a million suns (okay, perhaps she just said she hated it. You understand the necessity for hyperbole given the hideousness of the statement) yet she wanted to teach English to middle school students, possible the most easily destroyed level of students. I found that lack of regard for the damage she could do appalling. I love reading and writing with a passion and I am sure students would know that. I could not go a day teaching without showing that I had a true love of the written word. So, yeah, maybe I'd be a really great teacher because I love the subject. I think I love learning. But I get frustrated with... a lot of the rest of the world. Especially teachers who hate teaching. I currently have one of those teachers, who feels the need to teach through laziness and fear (he does not lecture, just tells us to read stories and present them to the class, then he quizzes us randomly about our reading. He gave me a B+ on my midterm, then told me it was a D because I handed it in 15 minutes early which signaled to him that I didn't actually care about the essay I had just written). As a student, of course, I dislike him for his harshness. But when I look at it from the stance of a potential future teacher, I actually abhor him. He serves as an example to me of what not to become, not that I think his level of complacency and semi-sadism is within my character anyway. He told another teacher of mine, one whom I like because she honestly loves talking about Geoffrey of Monmouth and Chaucer, that she should just quit her job because none of her students cared about Medieval English and were not smart enough to learn it. All she had done to provoke this was ask what plays of Shakespeare he was teaching so she would not overlap. If I were to ever reach this hatred of my profession, I would leave for greener pastures. I understand with tenure and the like, it is easier for teachers to ride out until retirement since they cannot be fired. Collect a paycheck every two weeks just for sitting and listening to some students erroneously prattle on about Willa Cather. It is comfortable for them, but obscenely detrimental to the student body. Owing to this teacher, I nearly have to force myself to enjoy American Literature, reminding myself that e e cummings is not to blame (e e cummings is never to blame) and that I still care that Gatsby was corrupted by his dreams and his misspent love of Daisy. If he can do this to a passionate student, I am loath to cast my mind over to the girl in my Foundations class (also in my American Lit class as a constant reminder) who sits in the back taking obsessive notes on said prattling. See, I started by asking you whether you saw the feasibility of my starting a small school for little ones and I stream-of-conscious myself into a diatribe about bad teachers. I want you to know that I think you are an excellent teacher, completely excluded from my condemnation (for what that is worth). I consider you a friend, as well, as I tend to regard all the teachers I truly learn from. In fact, I am still good friends with my former psychology professor from SUNY Dutchess. You would not be receiving this letter were I not to consider you a good teacher, for I would have an intense distrust of you. I do trust you. You are like a friend who grades me. I do not know where I will be most happy, doing what. One of my friends once said that I will better the world and change peoples live no matter what I do. At one point I thought it was assisting making movies. Then writing. Now teaching. Maybe tomorrow it will be psychology. Now it is teaching. But where? I could easily get a job teaching the children of the rich but that feels like a cop out. I could teach English to disenfranchised, inner-city youths, but I am frankly scared of that life. It is too hard a life for me, in my current opinion. I want to be around people who might actually want to learn, but still need to (yeah, find me the person who doesn't need to learn something and I will show you a great fool). So, Stephanie... um... how is the weather?

I am still idealistic enough to really, truly believe I can change the world,
[Xen]