"Did you always want to be a teacher?"

I have had a half bottle of wine so this blog may come out a jumbled incoherent mess but I'm hoping that some feelings and insight into my life give others an idea of the system.
Yesterday I was lecturing on ecology when I presented this slide

and a very smart student of mine asked me why I didn't become one of those scientists, or would I ever be one and finally did I always know I wanted to be a teacher?  And I responded, "no way!" 
I never knew that I would be a teacher, as far as I recall.  I really never remember talking about being a teacher, although my mom says in middle school I said I wanted to be a Spanish teacher.  I never knew what I wanted to do with my life besides...
I would go to college.
I would be married to a Mexican when I was 23.
I would have my first child when I was 25. 
I had NO idea what I was going to do after college and at the beginning of my 3rd year I had to figure out!  I really wanted to work for the USDA and get into their system then turn it around.  I wanted to work in quality control and monitoring of farms.  But all the entry level jobs required two years experience.  Nobody told me this when I went into college.  I applied as a business major but between then and when I entered a wise man told me any degree in science would be better than a business degree.  So a couple days before I had to register for classes at SDSU in August of 2002, I looked at their list of majors offered and crossed out all of the ones that I wouldn't do.  I was left with civil engineering and biology.  My mom always loved science, I did well in science, and there were too many intimidating men in engineering so I set on biology.  I took my biology courses, and nannied my way through college.  Nobody ever told me I would need to do an internship to get any decent job after college.  My goal then was to get out of my parents house so I couldn't afford to do an unpaid internship to get the experience I needed for a science position, I had to get a paying job. I figured what else can I do with a biology degree?... teach.  It's a secure job.  Science teachers are always in demand.  I've been working 4 years, 3 of which my district has done big layoffs and the English teachers hired at the same time as me have received pink slips.  But I've been spared every time.  The first day of school 2009, I was tenured.  I'm set, I'm secure in my job.  I make a good salary, have disability insurance, life insurance, a pension, full medical, dental and vision insurance.  How could I ask for anything more?  More importantly, how could I ever leave this?
Now that I'm a mother, I know so much more. 
I would love to spend my life spreading the word as an intactivist.
I'd love to be a home birth midwife.
I'd love to be a breast milk scientist.
Perhaps I'd be a good nutritionist.
There are so many things I am interested in but for now I am in the best place I could be.  At my school, there is almost no regulation.  I teach biology and life is biology so everything I'm interested in I can express to my students. Of course I preach to them about natural birth.  I show them pictures of my home birth because if not, they wouldn't know what it was!  Yes they know I still breastfeed my 17 month old!  I call the food they eat "shit" because it is... hot Cheetos in class, Gatorade, McDonald's.  I'm really interested in the news coming out about food coloring causing ADHD.  We have a huge population of "special" students at my school.  If only their parents knew and weren't victims of capitalism/commercialism.
My children are so removed from society it's ridiculous... Last week, I was supposed to be giving a lesson on protein synthesis but I had just heard the news about food coloring and ADHD and had multiple kids with bottles of colored liquid on my classroom desks so I segued into that latest research which I don't know how led to "the story of stuff bottled water."  At this point my boss walked in for a random observation.  Of course I was nervous because this is not in the state standards... it is my own agenda.  After the video a student asked well if you want us to drink tap water instead of bottled water... "where does the tap water come from?"  So I said the Sweetwater Reservoir.  Her response... "What's a reservoir?"  The reservoir is 2 miles from school!  So I mapped it and showed the class.  Surprisingly my boss's report said that she was pleased at how willing I was to adapt my lesson plan to the needs of the students. 
My point here is, kids do not know stuff that they should know and I'm having to go away from the state standards to teach them basic stuff!

Summary - Why Tre is not going to school...
Teachers have their own agenda... whether its to do nothing and get a paycheck or to preach information that I don't want him knowing.  Of course I want all of my 150 kids to know about the natural world but maybe their parents don't want them to, I don't know...
Teachers cannot care about the students.  I do not have time to tend to my husband, my child, my house and 150 pubescent teenagers!