Spoil the Teacher

[Edify_Always_In_All_Ways]

The teaching profession attracts two things: people drawn to an easy job, and people who are very liberal.

So you're saying that educating and helping children is a "very liberal" profession? While the conservative equivalent would be what? Blue-collar work? Polluting the environment for money?

I had a composition teacher that told jokes about his family and told of his family history associated with Fort Bluff. Who the freak cares about Fort F in Bluff. FOR FOURTEEN WEEKS. We didn't do anything. I paid this schmuck two thousand dollars approximately the cost of each class per semester as I estimated to tell me bad jokes and family stories. The only assignment we had was one paper for the final with one page of work cited. I wrote six pages about the way philosophers influenced the formation of America based off of common knowledge that I had from former research and cited general works from memory. It took me three hours. I got 100% in his class for three hours worth of work in three months. Where is the corporate mentality there. If he is suppossed to be preparing me for the corporate world, I think I would get more than three hours of work done in three months. I actually considered leaving the entire school after his class, but instead I wrote an anonymous letter to sixteen department heads, the president and the school paper. That worked.

So your bad teaching experiences amount to this guy and your liberal college professors. How many teachers have you had that were good at their jobs?

My assessment of teachers is what teaching is for me, a backdoor in case I really can't make it in life. If I really thought I couldn't become a manager as I did, if I thought I couldn't write investigative journalism as I did, If I couldn't write articles and run my own business, I always said that I would go to school to become a teacher and then just have an easy life for the rest of my life. Just wait for the tenure to set in and then relax. Literally, why do teachers have a freakin tenure. No other job has it. Ok, Joe Montana, you've been a 49 er for ten years, so you can be one for the rest of your life, so long as you don't screw around with any college girls. Okay, Ben Affleck you've been a marginal actor for ten years so you can be an actor with our studio forever no matter how bad you act in your movies.

The reason teachers have a tenure is because teaching is a HARD JOB. There are tough times for all teachers, and the random slackers you described will take their jobs unless they have their tenures. Sure, you have summers off- time for lesson planning! Wheee! I know several teachers personally, and they are some of the hardest-working people I know. My dad has been a math teacher since I can remember, and he has had students that have tested his patience like nothing you could know. Imagine having to be the boss of coworkers that:

1. Refuse to listen to what you have to say.

2. When they refuse to listen to what you have to say it is apparently, according to their parents, YOUR fault.

3. Deliberately turn your other coworkers against you.

4. Are required to take annual tests that, if they fail, are your fault and (unless you have a tenure) will get you fired.

5. Will not be fired from their jobs unless they actually attack someone or do something that attracts police attention (and then only for a few days).

6. For the most part, do not even want to be at their job.

And you are supposed to be helping these "coworkers" succeed in their lives. It takes some serious dedication.

It wouldn't fly any where else but teaching.

And, teachers are as I said notoriously liberal. Any sign of conservative mentality on a campus is usually shunned and insulted. Conservative organizations on campuses have been attacked by liberal teachers. Kids have been expelled from colleges for simple conservative meetings. Its appalling. Don't ask me to give you references just search google and you'll find a plethora. It's not my job to educate you, educate yourself.

The teaching profession is inherently liberal, because it is constantly changing and requires compassion and intelligence (I have to let out my anger somewhere, sorry ).

I couldnot find any of the "plethora" you mentioned, but I found many opposite aligned articles such as:

NWAnews.com :: Northwest Arkansas' News Source
Atheist Expelled, May Be Readmitted After Psychiatric Evaluation

There are many conservative professions that are also widely complained about (Contracters are infamous here- look on Google and educate yourself)

The effort it takes to be a manager 90 out of 100. The effort to be an investigative journalist 85 out of 100. The energy to run your own business 100 out of 100. The effort to write articles and editorials 75 out of 100. In my mind the effort it takes to be a teacher, 30 out of 100. I'd only be repeating what I already know. There's nothing new, no stretching, no experimenting. If I were more of a coward in business, I'd settle to become a teacher.

Teacher: 105 out of 100 (110 in some areas).

Do not generalize about this incredibly decent group of people, please.

Enough said.

 

[UtahBill]

Allow me to generalize about teachers,

Most are dedicated professionals.
Most are underpaid.
Most have to put up with too many kids who don't want to be there,
and parents who don't care enough to make their kids do their assignments.
Most really, really need summers off, to recharge from 9 months of dealing with too many malcontent students, negligent parents, and an administration that won't support them in their efforts to teach.
and best of all,
Most of them make a positive contribution to the lives of our children.

Those who want to be critics of a noble profession are probably making more money, do less work, and will not likely ever make a difference in anyone's lives.

 

[1069]

Allow me to generalize about teachers,

Most are dedicated professionals.
Most are underpaid.
Most have to put up with too many kids who don't want to be there,
and parents who don't care enough to make their kids do their assignments.
Most really, really need summers off, to recharge from 9 months of dealing with too many malcontent students, negligent parents, and an administration that won't support them in their efforts to teach.
and best of all,
Most of them make a positive contribution to the lives of our children.

Those who want to be critics of a noble profession are probably making more money, do less work, and will not likely ever make a difference in anyone's lives.

Most may need summers off, but they don't get them.
The lousy pay forces most of the teachers I know to seek temporary summer jobs doing everything from waitressing to working in daycare centers.
Beyond that, I agree with your "generalizations".

 

[Flea]

Bodi is AWOL, but he is a teacher and said that he works two nights a week in the service industry just to make a couple of extra bucks. He works summers 5 days a week wehn that comes and works summer school. His wife works and they have two little kids.

Some of you are completely ignorant and make a lot of ridiculous assumptions. If you want to bitch about teachers, try teaching a class of lower level high school kids that have never had parent structure and little to zero manners. No parent support. Kids can't read beyond 4th grade level. Gangs. Fighting. Swearing. Ipods. Cell phones. Disrespect. Destruction of property.

Pull your head out of your butts, some of you sound really stupid.

Teaching well takes a talent, it is just not one that is appreciated. There are bad teachers, but there are bad everything. Like all CEO's are great people. :roll: Shipping Nike off to Indonesia so the oppressive gov can exhort underage girls to work for pennies. What about doctors that are drunk in the operating room? Crooked Lawyers? Corrupt Congressmen? How many people are in it for the money and stick it to everybody else?

Bash teaching? Might as well just say, "I am a complete idiot". It shows that you have no scope of thought. Morons. :roll:

 

[BodiSatva]

Utah
Bodi is AWOL, but he is a teacher and said that he works two nights a week in the service industry just to make a couple of extra bucks. He works summers 5 days a week wehn that comes and works summer school. His wife works and they have two little kids.

Yep. AWOL for a couple days I think. Bad for you all...

Yeah, but once I get my MA in Business Administration, things will be a little better.

politicomind, you have bigger issues to worry about in your life than what makes people tick... You are a couple cans short of a six pack buddy! :lol:

 

[moob]

I've been teaching for 12 years in public school (high school/earth sciences). That means that I am overpaid and have summers off. I can't understand why there aren't a flood of applicants for my job - what with the powerful union that backs my every move. I also can't understand why a third of all new teahers quit in their first year. gosh.. what with all the money we make and time off.... its crazy! Why would you want to go into the business world where you get paid vacations, healthcare, business lunches, overtime, christmas bonuses and work for a profit that you might take home in stock?

beats me.

Well... I've got to get back to brainwashing my kids about climate change science and evolution. Global warming.. that so funny.. its so darn cold outside today.

 

[UtahBill]

Public sector unions? My wife has taught in AZ and ID, and was not a member of a union in either state. They had them, but being right to work states, no one is required to join them.
So believe it or don't, not all states have the unions that are being castigated here. Read the link if you want some more info.
Right-to-work law - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Compare the site to another wikipedia site, those of Red vs. Blue states and you can see that Red states (Republican) favor right to work laws more so than blue states. Not an exact overlay, but close. The Red/Blue link also shows the history of Red vs. Blue with a changing map that is very interesting.
Red state vs. blue state divide - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[UtahBill]

Although teachers largely get a raw deal, they also have to face the reality that, were public schools to compete on the open market, absolutely no one would use them. Even in good schools, preposterous amounts of money are spent in achieving that goal. This is because they don't have to worry about efficiency, they just have to worry about self preservation, and as they have an avenue to make it so that efficiency is not required in their self preservation (as those who ultimately make said decisions either do not answer directly to those who pay financially for said decisions or answers to those on so many different issues that the efficiency of the schools is only a minor concern considering all the other things that you hold the official accountable for), they do not have an efficiency check on their demands.

And yet, with all the money involved, there are very few charter schools or other options available to the public. Maybe most of the parents are happy with the public schools? Maybe some of the parents just don't care?
Efficiency? Remember the super bowl commercial where the cowboys were herding cats? We are dealing with children here, and there are so many variables among them that efficiency is not achievable, short of issuing them uniforms and engaging in brain washing. The raw material here is not consistent in quality, and the process by which we refine them does not work the same on a generation by generation basis. Final results are bound to be all over the place, as it should be in a free country. Even children have their freedoms, even if it means that they are free to be underpaid in menial jobs when they become adults. At some point, if the child does not WANT to take advantage of the education offered, then there will be no school of any quality that can produce a quality finished product of him or her.
The fact that we do manage to make a large percentage of them into a useful product means that the schools must be doing at least an adequate job. I credit the teachers for that....