Posted on 01/30/2007 5:45:59 AM PST by wintertime
"BREAK UP THE TEACHER'S UNIONS"
Bingo.
Every profession has its share of dodos.
Not everyone is protected like incomptent teachers.
Well...except politicians and government workers.
Bravo to you!
My younger brother just got his first teaching job a couple of months ago in FL. He is Mr. Conservative, traditional Catholic, and a genius (well, we like to think so, lol). FWIW he also conducted a homeschooling band for a couple of years while in grad school, although he teaches public school now.
I have a couple of cousins who teach school, and the wife of one of them is a teacher. My brother-in-law teaches high school. The wife of another cousin teaches in NJ. Public school teachers all.
My aunt (mom's sister-in-law) teaches Catholic school and has for many years.
I have homeschooled (so no one can label me an anti-homeschool crackpot), but we put our 8 y.o. in Catholic school this year, and we couldn't be more pleased. I am astounded at the amount of dedication these men and women show for the amount of pay they get (they are paid a lot less than their public school counterparts).
Instead of degrading teachers as a profession and tearing down the good ones out there, I wish we could see more praise of those who really do their part despite the system. I guess it's easier to sit and complain and point fingers though...
You are clueless. You post a list of "criteria" which teachers "fail to meet," one of them being "trained to serve clients with problems." But who is the client? Is it the child or the parent of the child? Indeed, it is the parent.
My wife is a special ed teacher, and the scope of her work is defined by a document which is forumlated with input from the child's parents. In many cases, her work is limited by the demands of the "whiny" parents. In such cases, she is serving the student to the best of her ability; while she and the school district can offer the parent guidance and suggestions, it is the parent who ultimately signs off on the manner in which the child will be instructed and the goals which will be achieved.
Your presumption that the student is the client, and that teachers should be permitted to "do what was right for the students regardless of the demands of whiny or demanding principals or parents" is not only unfounded but utterly ridiculous. Indeed, it is the parents who do (or should) oversee their child's education and academic progress. In all too many cases, parents treat the school system as a daycare center and don't take any interest in what or how their child is learning. However, a teacher is not and should not be permitted to trump the wishes of a child's parent, for good or bad.
"I guess it's easier to sit and complain and point fingers though..."
Yes it is.
it is especially easy to NOT show up to locas school board meetings to voice concernts.
It is very easy to NOT call up the local principal, superintendent, and transportation director to ask questions and express opinions.
It is very easy to assume the worst about EVERYONE and paint them all with a very broad brush.
I don't envy the role of the classroom manager. That's why I love college. You don't like it? Get out.
You are very right.
Heh. My mom teaches fifth grade, and I swear she has ever single one of those posters in her room. And then some. If we weren't in Texas she would've been fired by now.
If you're anything like her, you work sixty hours a week as an unofficial nurse, babysitter, and surrogate parent for crap pay and zero respect.
Obviously, she should quit. She should quit laying the groundwork so that these children will be better able to think for themselves as they spend the next ten years being indoctrinated and dumbed down. She should quit trying to instill patriotism and personal responsibility in children who won't get it anywhere else. As everyone knows, they would clearly be better off at home watching The View.
Of course, she's a functionally illiterate enabler, so what does she know?
The system is broken, the unions are out of control, and the bureaucracy making all the decisions have never stepped foot in a classroom.
There are a lot of shitty teachers out there because that is what the system is attracting and cultivating. But there are also a lot of truly good ones who get denigrated along with them and keep doing it anyway.
After reading threads like this, I don't know what they hell they're thinking.
I really can't stand these threads. You see right away that it isn't only a handful of bad highlighted teachers who are the ignorant ones. Most of the teachers who go into the field are caring, hard-working individuals who put up with the enormous amount of BS that one sees on these threads representing the ignorant non-teaching masses. My husband is a teacher and he's always working and upgrading his classes. He takes on the establishment when he has to and students and their parents when he needs to. He's always available and his students are lucky to get him.
Mathematics? Oh, yeah, that's the oldest obsession.
I would even make the case that lawyers aren't professionals, since extensive training actually seems to make many of them dumber and less competent over time.
It seems to me that labeling an occupation or career as a "profession" is a sort of shallow attempt to give that occupation or career some sort of intrinsic value beyond its true value to society.
I received my education in spite of the public schools.
*I* am an engineer. A good student can take just 4 regular BS college years to be a "professional".
"My husband is a teacher and he's always working and upgrading his classes. He takes on the establishment when he has to and students and their parents when he needs to. He's always available and his students are lucky to get him."
Mine is a former teacher - presently an overworked, overstressed administrator whose job is to tick off everyone all the time! :)
It's a thankless job and his hands are often tied.
He's been in the classroom - on the athletic fields - and now he does his best to keep unruly kids AND unruly teachers in line.
He earns every penny they give him.
As did we all. Funny how that works.
That was pretty much 11th grade English for me. Kids are generally not permitted the freedom to spend hours researching in the school library on their own (we spent class time there) so it isn't surprising that they hadn't written a term paper up to that point.
Of course you are. And you also know 'engineers' who bought their papers. But those 4 years were enough to reveal your aptitude -- not to shove more than cursory knowledge into you -- show your aptitude: being on the job has turned you into the professional you are now.
Not the military in general, certainly. Some professions in the military surely, such as pilot.
The biggest failure in education today is not the government and the teachers' unions. The biggest failure in education today is that the very notion of "public education" is completely incompatible with the basic principles that serve as the foundation of this country.
Having an education system that is: (1) compulsory, and (2) completely detached from any sense of personal and legal responsibility on the part of the people involved (students, teachers, parents, etc.) is a recipe for disaster.
The failure of education in this country isn't that our schools turn out so many dysfunctional kids with no skills . . . it's that they waste a lot of money in the process of doing it.
No. You are considered a "professional" as soon as you enter the job.
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