Posted on 07/06/2023 9:54:10 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
From my experience and from talking to friends & relatives who went into K12 education. In WV the teacher’s union and the “educrat” establishment including colleges of education work hand-in-glove. Why wouldn’t they it’s made up of essentially the same people! They are almost all share the same education experience - ED degrees. Many are ex-teachers in the county and state education bureaucracy. Often, they capture the school boards by running sympathetic candidates- often ex-teachers.
It’s all very Marxian in a way. The education colleges are the ideological fountains that produce the weird teaching ideas and the leaders of the education proletariat. The teachers are the “education proletariat”. The unions and students at the education colleges are the “shock troops” who can be called out to support a strike or strike the right ‘Sympathetic pose” with the media to gain sympathy. In WV I’ve seen them go and bring out other unions!
Wife taught for 35 years.
My father had a different goal. He was an EE that spent his first half of his career in the ‘50’s-’60’space race. The second half doing what he really wanted to do advanced engine engineering...
He just wanted to be a teacher’s aid/assistant in math and science. Since he wasn’t going back to school as a retiree for Ed.School, he was a no go in helping kids learn.
Unions in many states control the hiring-firing process and it becomes near impossible to get rid of a bad teacher. They also push the propaganda indoctrination process while chipping away at teaching actual literacy, math and history. We, like a disproportionately large number of teachers’ families, did not subject our 4 children to the Public schools once wife saw what the progression is.
You are a wise couple. Too bad it is so difficult to found schools outside of the government stink. I know there are a lot of great teachers who would knuckle down to teach. I taught only three years on a provisional certificate. My students were great, I loved teaching my subject; but, the writing on the walls was clear. Those places are merely diploma factories now, no education required.
I was a high school teacher for decades.
Not much of a revelation after your first comment.
Perhaps you could explain your comment.
If you have a counter-argument to make, I’d love to hear it. I might learn something.
But snide and snarky comments do no one any good. So please don’t bother me with them.
I have numerous teaching certifications -- WSI, BSA and Red Cross Lifeguard, Theatre and Dance (from my college), Scottish Country Dance, and Equitation (Hunter-Jumper). I can persuade a jury when there are hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line. My mother was a dance teacher and my father was a trial lawyer - both were singers and actors in their spare time. It's in my DNA.
The real kicker about law firms being private is that they have to do their job, or die. If somebody's a bad lawyer, the word gets around without delay.
I think the answer on teachers is to have a review board to which a teacher can appeal an unjust dismissal - staff it with a good cross section of parents, teachers, school board members, and a few lawyers just to see fair play. Tenure -- like unions -- has outlived its usefulness.
That is a good way to attract the best engineers as well. I can see a new submarine manufacturer in your future.
In Georgia, the Principle of a school can revoke any teacher's certificate. So, when a teacher doesn't go along with the pronoun thing, out the door he goes, state wide.
Yeah, your understanding of this mess is so clear. < /sarcasm>
Aside from that he will threaten you.
Similarly, I’ve been studying music on my own for 70 years. Recently, I dared to teach a church congregation how to diagram a song (read music.)
The Educrats at the local government indoctrination camp gasped and shuddered.
I told them their approach has led to people bragging and being proud that they couldn’t read music.
There’s a huge difference between an engineering/science/math degree and an engineering/science/math education degree.
> One is born knowing how to motivate. Learning the “how” is a substitute for a real drive to teach. <
Some truth there. Perhaps I didn’t choose my words carefully enough last time. The “how” I mentioned referred to specific teaching techniques.
Here’s an example. I was in my fourth year of teaching high school science when an older teacher gave me a tip. Kids start to get restless half-way through a lesson, he said.
So when you’re half-way through a lesson, change things up a bit. Do a quick demo. Hold up some relevant item. Even just moving to another side of the room helps!
I never thought of doing that. But the older teacher was right! His advice made me a better teacher.
> I think the answer on teachers is to have a review board to which a teacher can appeal an unjust dismissal - staff it with a good cross section of parents, teachers, school board members, and a few lawyers just to see fair play. <
That is a great idea.
In Georgia, the Principle of a school can revoke any teacher's certificate.
*Principal
Yeah, your understanding of this mess is so clear. </sarcasm>
That starts with removing from the classroom those individuals (they are NOT students) who are only there to disrupt.
It boggles my mind how people can sing in a choir for 20 plus years and never learn to read music! It is such a tremendous help when you can just read it right out of the book.
Public education is in steep, and perhaps irreversible, decline. So I will not object to anyone criticizing the field. Heck, I might even agree with some of those criticisms.
But I do object to personal criticisms of me, when there is no argument to back it up. Without any specifics, I learn nothing. It’s just a form of name-calling.
In a way, it’s like the country’s current police situation. On other threads I have made numerous criticisms of out-of-control cops. But I would never personally criticize any police officer on this forum. I don’t know that specific person. I do not know his history. So it would be quite unfair to criticize him.
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