Op-Ed: Free food for all? Absolutely. In this age of abundance, it should be a human right.
What do you get when you mix a former high school history teacher, a former U.N. diplomat, and a former U.S. senator? If I recall my days as a Peace Corps volunteer correctly, it was a U.N. diplomat with the same name who had been assigned to help the Peace Corps in a country on the other side of the world, a country that the Peace Corps had not visited before. I had no choice but to accept the job, even though I was uncomfortable with the idea of teaching people in another country about their own government and history. What I did at that time gave me some insight into the role of teachers, as well as the value of education, which is why I’m now a full-time teacher.
Now I have a different problem with teaching. I’m teaching students from three high schools in Florida, and they’re having trouble learning some of the curriculum. One student from one of the schools has been teaching in that school for eight months, but isn’t getting the results she’d hoped for. She keeps getting low marks so she can’t take the class home but wants to know if I can help her as a teacher. Now, I’d like to ask the students whether they think teaching is a job or a vocation- and the idea is that I should do my very best at whatever job I’m doing, whether it’s teaching or being a teacher.
I’m a Christian, so I don’t see teaching as one of the vocationally mandated duties that Christians are meant to do. I think I can be a teacher without it being my primary vocation.
I don’t think the students should think that a former history teacher has the right to give them a free ride on my time. It may be that I didn’t fully explain my job description to them, but that’s
