The different paths to becoming a teacher (10/9/26 exit slip)

The concept of a high school teacher who never attended high school themselves is something that never even crossed my mind as a possibility. Intuitively one may think this to be a detrimental thing (and I'm sure in some ways it is), but my mind immediately jumped to potential positive implications. The main positive implication I believe would be that such a teacher would have no one to mimic, which can be good because it is so easy to fall into copying the techniques of the teachers you had. This mimicking of past teachers can quickly result in stagnancy and the recycling of stale pedagogies. Also, without these internalized expectations of how a teacher behaves, the imagination has room to flourish. A consequence of this which Frank focused a lot on in the video is the constant inquiry a teacher should engage with, which is something that is easiest when one doesn't have a rigid relationship with the past (though obviously still possible for every teacher). Additionally, I believe the more life experiences outside of school a teacher has to pull from, the more well rounded an educator will be. By skipping out on high school and living in abject poverty much of his life, Frank was able to acquire a lot of "life experience" quite early which I feel can be seen in his teaching style and philosophy. Sometimes life experience can complicate things though, like with his perception on war being oddly positive because he benefited from its repercussions. There were also some teaching techniques he outlined, which while fun, would maybe not be acceptable in the modern context like having students write ruthless obituaries for teachers they don't like. Ultimately, what I got out of the video and discussion is that there are many paths to becoming a teacher, all of which shape what type of teacher we will be, and as long as we stay open to analyzing ourselves, the education world is our oyster.