Teacher: It's a feeling of us vs. them

Odessa American ^ | 1/22/12 | Cayler Ballinger

[Nachum]

Cleaning out years of projects and student art from her classroom was an emotional process for Teri Cowan, but she felt it was her only choice. Cowan worked for the Ector County Independent School District for 23 years, 13 of those years teaching Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate sophomore English at Odessa High School. She was teacher of the year for the 2010-11 school year at the high school and secondary teacher of the year for ECISD for the 1995-96 school year. As well as volunteering as the National Honor Society, prom and class council sponsors. Tuesday, Jan. 17, was

[hanamizu]

Could any good ever come out of the above? It’s from Cscope’s website. TESCCC sounds very much like The Organization Formerly Known As JCAHO, the hospital accrediting bureaucrats who set up hoops for people who actually take care of patients to jump through.

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You have hit the nail on the head. It sounds like Texas is a bit further down the road than here in Missouri—but it is the same road. Here, we hear of “research-based” teaching models that simply cannot fail or be argued with since they are research-based. The state now issues GLEs (grade-level expectations) so that our school can meet AYP (annual yearly progress). Ever notice how administrators love abbreviations?

So far, because I teach an unimportant subject—history—I have not had to correlate each day’s lesson plan with GLEs, but that day is coming—or at least it is for my successor.

I know that the public schools and their teachers don’t get a lot of love and respect here on FR, but at its best, teaching is truly a calling. But no one goes into the profession to fill out forms in a stupid lesson plan data base.

[Clara Lou]

I know a lot of people who need the teaching position— it’s their career.
I hope you get a slot this semester, because, as far as I can tell, there will be more cuts next year, and it may be tough to get one over the summer. Our district is assuming that there will be a multi-million dollar shortfall next year. (I suggest they ax some of the jobs in central office, for starters.) I feel terrible for new teachers who owe on student loans.

Good luck!

[BobL]

Good to see this teacher speaking out, but futile. The schools don’t answer to her, or the kids, or the parents, or the community. They ONLY answer to whomever gives them their money, and that is the government...no one else.

I taught my kids reading and math a marker board and a set of flash cards, and then Saxon Math. Got them years ahead before they ever stepped foot into school. I used as much software as people did a hundred years ago, when kids were WAY AHEAD of where they are today, despite often having illiterate parents. It isn’t that hard.

[narses]

Teaching is, or ought to be (in my often not humble enough opinion), a calling, like the ministry.

Time was when we had "Normal Schools", young people took two years to prepare for a usually short "career" as educators before they, themselves became married parents. The alternative was to enter a "Regular Order" and teach in the unmarried state, often for a lifetime.

Then came the World Wars and the rapid cultural changes, and the near world wide embrace of some form of socialism. Hallmarks included unions and anti-clericalism. It took nearly a century but Satan had a grand old time deconstructing the family, the Church, the schools (primary, secondary and post secondary) and the media.

Clara Lou, thank you for your service in the classroom, Ben good luck to you in the pursuit of this very necessary work of charity.

[BobL]

“If I were still teaching, I’d invite you to my classroom. There’s no “perverted stuff” or “leftist crap.” My school district is in the middle of one of the reddest counties in Texas. We hate perverted stuff and leftist crap. We pledge allegiance and have a moment of silence every day of the school year.”

Don’t get too comfortable there. It won’t last. You’re just further down on the priority list.

[narses]

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[Chode]

bingo...

[bmwcyle]

The problem with education is not enough of that old time discipline.

[Lancey Howard]

ECISD Superintendent Hector Mendez said when a district has three unacceptable campuses, is not meeting federal AYP standards on 60 to 70 percent of the campuses and is classified as stage 3 and 4 in areas by the Texas Education Agency; some things need to change.

Abdiel Natividad, an OHS junior who had Cowan as his teacher last year, said she was a great teacher and someone, “you just couldn’t help but love.” He said as a student he noticed Cowan doing a lot, especially when former English teacher Jena Marie Graves resigned last April and Cowan added Graves’ students to her classroom.

Graves was indicted in May on a felony theft following a negative balance of more than $6,500 from the Bronchettes activity fund. The loss of Graves as a teacher led to Cowan teaching several classes that often had 50 plus students. Cowan said she had a teaching assistant but the majority of the self-inflicted work fell to her because she wanted to make sure no student fell between the cracks in Graves’ loss.

Interesting school.

[Lancey Howard]

If I were still teaching, I’d invite you to my classroom. There’s no “perverted stuff” or “leftist crap.” My school district is in the middle of one of the reddest counties in Texas. We hate perverted stuff and leftist crap. We pledge allegiance and have a moment of silence every day of the school year.

Does the teachers union there send their money to the Democrats the way most other unions do?

[Paladin2]

Let the students enter the data. There’s more of them and the system is built for them, right?

[driftdiver]

A lot of people spend 12 hours a day at work. Most of them don’t get 2-3 months off every year.

[savagesusie]

Bureaucracies are always inefficient and costly-—with more damage to students as the top down system is removed from local government.

We need to destroy DOE—and government unions-—get total control over the classrooms by parents again—like the days of Lincoln. No stupid paperwork for the masters. Just accountability to parents and student learning.

Education is better if it doesn’t happen in the classroom anyhow. We always knew that up until the Fabian Socialists in the 30’s forced the Prussian system of mass indoctrination and brainwashing onto our country. They made you believe that “teachers” are better than “parents” at instructing your children. Throughout history, people like Ben Franklin, George Washington, Wright bros., Edison, Mark Twain learned way more from their families and spent little time in “schools”. They worked-—when young—to learn life-saving skills and how to survive, etc. They weren’t “babied” and infantilized so that all morality and creative force is destroyed.

They grew up early (but morally pure—unknowing about perversion, unless sexually abused)-never had “adolescent” problems because they were working and moral, and people needed them to help to survive. They had a purpose-—no time for silly amusements that destroy the acquisition of knowledge and wisdom. They were superior in knowledge and wisdom than children are today although they went through MUCH LESS “schooling”. And without the real life experiences, they have no common sense. Sitting in front of TV destroys the ability to have healthy relationships and interactions.

You have less common sense, because you aren’t exposed to the real reality of life and emotions and interaction with real people. It is all fake and emotions and compassion are destroyed by the constant manipulation of the emotions through the conditioning of TV.

People were more moral prior to the brainwashing and Kinsey and Hefner indoctrination into what and how to think. They had virtue (all crime rates and abortions rates, out of wedlock, stats prove this.) and that is what our schools are erasing (on purpose) to create a vulgar, inhumane society so they can take over and reorganize everything and control all your actions.

To destroy individualism (Christianity) and morality (Natural Family) because the Leviathan always just wants “useful idiots” who they can enslave (Mill) so they can keep the earth free of the filth, so their own families of harems of boys, etc., (for Marxists hate the biological family since they would object to their children being used for sex)-— may use it as their playground, since there is no life after death for these godless people..

[musicman]

I agree!!

[dagogo redux]

For information’s sake, with mixed feelings about the source and validity of the quote:

“He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.”
From Man and Superman (1903) “Maxims for Revolutionists,” by George Bernard Shaw.

To which some have added, in support of great teachers like this woman, “Those who cannot teach, administrate.”

Between the involvement of the Federal government, and the breakdown of society under the last hundred years of Marxist efforts, and the silly emphasis on “information” rather than knowledge and wisdom and critical thinking since the internet took off, the bell-shaped curve of well-educated youngsters has certainly shifted markedly to the left in my lifetime. Poor kids.

[BenKenobi]

No loans, but I really need the work. Paid off all my loans years ago.

[BenKenobi]

Well, that’s where I am right now, teaching, getting some experience under my belt. I have the degree and the qualifications, but not the experience.

After my contract is up in June I’ll have 2 years experience.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

The Arizona legislature is proposing a major change to its public education system, that will probably not get much press nationwide, because on the surface it sounds unimportant.

The bill would let schools opt-out of the school lunch program. Doesn’t sound like much, does it?

That is, the FEDERAL school lunch program (NSLP).

The secret is that, for decades, the federal government has used the *threat* of cancelling the NSLP as an excuse to FORCE schools to adopt huge amounts of expensive federal mandates. Literally millions of dollars of unneeded administrative costs, and even more importantly, mandates that WASTE large amounts of time that students should use for learning.

So if even a few schools opt-out of the NSLP, they will not only save a fortune they can use for students and teachers, but their students could have the equivalent of *useful* weeks added to their school year for studies, instead of nonsense federal “studies, feelings surveys, and politically correct indoctrination”.

And in no way will this prevent the schools from feeding their students healthy, nutritious lunches that they want to eat, instead of Michelle Obama’s inedible crap that students throw in the waste bins; bringing food from home or eating junk food, or starving, which many poor kids will do instead of eating that crap.

So as you might imagine, LOTS of schools will vie for this opt-out, if they have a choice.

And once the federals find out, they will be *enraged*, and sue Arizona as hard as they can to *force* all its schools to have the NSLP, and all the other b.s. federal rules.

Because if more states adopt this idea, a LOT of the federal control and involvement in public schools goes right out the window. As such, it is a MAJOR threat to the federal government’s big government agenda.

[lyby]

The “gist” of this article is too many federal noses in state and local decision-making regarding education! To h*ll with No Child Left Behind and Annual Yearly Progress. Educational administration says, “Do not teach to the test”; however, out of the “other side of their mouth”, teachers must teach to the test. I AM CALLED to be a teacher! I teach 7th graders about mathematics!! Yes, I work an 8-hour day at school. I also work 2+ hours each day and on weekends AT HOME! Thank goodness for the 3-day weekends throughout the year and definitely I am grateful for the 10-day Christmas break and the 8-9 weeks off each summer!
I NEED that time to rejuvenate and prepare for a new school year - not to mention the summer weeks are when I get most of my hours in for recertification!! (When else would I have time to go to classes and/or conferences? I am CERTAINLY NOT going to miss a week of teaching to get in those required hours!!)

[CMAC51]

It’s really your union against all of us, Lady.

I'm sorry but you are incorrect. Teachers in Texas are not unionized. They have an association they can join that supports them with insurance, information and a political voice. It is not a collective bargaining union.