Don't Send Your Kids to Ski School by Daria

Don't Send Your Kids to Ski School by Daria - June 2017 Scholarship Essay

When I was six I wanted to be a teacher. I wanted to be in charge. I wanted to be able to tell kids that bullied me to stop. I wanted to be friends with everyone like my teacher was.

And then I became one.

It wasn’t as fun as I had thought. Granted teaching five-year olds is hard enough, but the way I was teaching, these kids has skis and heavy boots on their feet that might as well been bowling balls strapped to pool noodles and it was on a snowy terrain that might as well been a tundra. Because when you mom brings you to have a “fun” day at the ski resort while she relaxes at the bar. Really she is pulling on the nerved of the poor ski instructor who has to teach 20 children at once with the same lack of motor skills, sames motivations to not be outside for six hours straight, and half of them only have on one fall coat and it's nearing 0 degrees outside.

Don’t get me wrong. I love to ski. I loved being with these kids, learning their personalities, and at the end of the day their ridiculous parents where the last people I cared about. But at the end of it all, when I came home aching and tired, I didn’t think they learned anything. Most people claim it’s fulfilling to feed knowledge to the next generation. All I felt like I fed was six hours of realizing being outside sucks. It's even worse when you're barely past two feet tall and your longest amount of time outside was recess for 20 minutes.

It didn’t take long for me to give in to the shouting encouragement from teachers and parents and peers and friends to just be an artist like my dad.

The art room was always so much quieter anyway.