languages (Teachers)

From: Richard Erlacher <edick_at_idcomm.com>
Date: Fri Mar 10 13:41:18 2000

I've got little sympathy for the teachers in in our school system. Many of
them may be honest and hard-working, but during the six years during which I
spent on the order of 12-15 hours a week in the school building, observing
the goings-on and attending various meetings, I saw what I feel is a
better-than-average sample of what the teachers themselves, school system
issues aside, are all about.

First of all, during my second year in this close-up of the system, I had
occasion to visit one gym teacher. He had a 5-bedroom, 2-story house with a
3-car attached garage, and a car parked in the driveway because the garage
was full of cars. That particular teacher was always complaining about the
low pay. He and I met in the context of an accusation made by a number of
the gym students, that he spent his time reading the newspaper, while he
should have been supervising the locker room in order to help prevent the
thefts and violence that had been brought to the steering committee's
attention. When he told me what he earned, which I already knew, I pointed
out to him that I had paid more than that in state taxes that year. He
simply lived beyond his means. I, on the other hand, lived in a 3-bedroom
ranch-style house with merely a carport. There were no extra vehicles in my
driveway, either.

One 6th-grade math teacher openly declared that he didn't have time to look
outside while the children were leaving the school premises to help prevent
violent incidents and harrassment as had been brought to the steering
committee's attention. I observed that he was always one of the last
teacher to arrive in the morning, though he was always out of the parking
lot before the first 10% of the student body was leaving the building.

On one occasion, I protested the frivolous activity that was being pursued
in the social studies classes, which was clearly an art project. After the
social studies department spent 10 weeks of the semester on this activity, I
was accused, perhaps justifiably, of throwing my weight around. The entire
social studies department made an appearance at a committee meeting, to
register their complaint, and I challenged them to indicate even a hint of
how this artsy-project had tied into the curriculum, first by asking what
the cultural significance of the item being mimicked was to the
Native-Americans of whose history these were a component, and second, by
challenging them to (a) show some connection to the curriculum that was
worth over half a semester and (b) to show how they had taught the
significance of this item to the current cultural environment. They could
answer neither question between them. I asked them a few other
social-studies-related questions along the way, only to demonstrate the
depth of knowledge of our social studies department.

This matter had risen not from my concern over the quality of teaching,
since I already knew where that was, but over my concern that all 7th grade
students were required to carry, among other things, a pair of scissors,
which were, by school district policy included among contraband items. The
Social Studies department could not justify this breach of policy. The
following fall, 4 of the 7 teacher were assigned to different schools and
the one's contract was not renewed.

I was as disappointed as anyone could be after my public school experience.
When I was in these schools (the same ones, by the way) teachers lived in
the neighborhood, and I walked to school with a couple of them every
morning. The teacher not only knew their respective subjects, but the
English teachers could help with questions about math or science, and the
principal spoke very elegant Engish. Even the gym teachers were up to date
on world events and could tell you what city was the capitol of Burma.

Dick

-----Original Message-----
From: sjm <sethm_at_loomcom.com>
To: classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Date: Friday, March 10, 2000 11:58 AM
Subject: Re: Re: languages (Teachers)


>
>On Fri, Mar 10, 2000 at 08:58:43AM -0700, Richard Erlacher wrote:
>> Another thing to keep in mind about these jobs is that not only is the
>> summer vacation long, but there are plenty of days without kids in the
>> building, when most teachers go skiing or golfing, or hot-tubbing, and
the
>> workday for most of them is less than 6 hours.
>>
>> Dick
>
>I think it's extremely unfair to label all teachers like this.
>You make them sound lazy. I know only one highschool teacher today,
>but I do know he works his ass off. He does NOT take the summer off,
>he takes summer teaching contracts to make ends meet. After teaching
>his classes he has, further courses of his own to attend, papers to
>grade, lesson plans to work out, staff meetings, conference meetings,
>parent-teacher meetings, and inbetween tons of shit none of us
>would want to deal with dumped on him. Sometimes he doesn't get
>home until 11:00 -- and neither do I, but at least I get paid for it.
>
>I attended public school between 1979 and 1992, in both California
>and Connecticut. We moved around frequently, and I was in 8
>different schools during that time. That's a lot of different school
>systems, and a lot of different teachers. Yes, I had some that were
>merely doing their job, not going the extra mile. And I think I
>can probably put my finger on exactly one who I would honestly call
>lazy (everybody has a teacher horror story to tell). But those who
>stand out in my mind were the genuine heros. They were IN to what
>they did. They LOVED the kids. They latched on to us and energized
>us and really taught us. They made us solve problems, they made us
>work together, they made us look forward to their classes every day.
>They had a passion for what they did, and God bless them for it.
>
>I can't think of a more honorable profession.
>
>-Seth
Received on Fri Mar 10 2000 - 13:41:18 GMT