Great smack down of a teacher critic in my local paper!

[proud2BlibKansan]

An article on the front page of the local paper is about the school district's decision this week to not continue the existing Reading program. Quite a few teachers posted comments following the story complaining about this and the resulting lack of materials available to teach Reading when school starts next week.

Then this comment appeared:

Sorry KC Teacher, but all of you need to stop making excuses. As a district, ALL OF YOU are doing a terrible job. YOU, as a part of that district need to take ownership of that. It is reading. The same reading that you and I and our great, great, great grandparents learned. It does not take a 1.7 million dollar program to teach reading. Give the child a book. Teach them the alphabet. Teach them about consonants, vowels, nouns, verbs. It is your job. Most of us have jobs too. We don't always have the perfect tools or support to do our jobs. But if the job is important, which yours obviously is, you have to find a way to get it done or move out of the way and let someone else do it.

*
Posted by: Tired of excuses

And here is the smack down:



Tired of excuses,

Okay, I am moving out of the way and you can have my job. 25 eager little faces will be there to greet you on the 25th. You need to fill 6 hours every day with instruction in Reading, Math, Science and Social Studies. No recess because the district did away with it a couple years ago. If Human Resources managed to hire enough teachers for your school, you will only have your 25 all day. If not, you will have 50 kids.

Be sure to have enough pencils, crayons, glue, scissors, paper and backpacks for the kids who don't bring supplies to school. Since the district has still not allowed principals to purchase supplies for this coming year, you will have to take care of those kids without them by yourself. (Or you can do like I do and ask your friends and family to pick up school supplies when they see them on sale.)

And don't bother saving receipts for what you buy since the district will never reimburse you and you can't take a tax deduction for them anymore.

As soon as you get to school in the morning, go stand in line to go to the bathroom as you won't get to go again until lunchtime. And at lunch be prepared to decide if you want to eat or use the restroom. By the time you get your 25 (or 50) situated in the cafeteria, you will be lucky to have 15 minutes before you have to pick them up again.

Oh and know what you want to teach and what books you want to use, since the district won't have a Reading program in place and it will be a miracle if you have enough Math, Science and Social Studies textbooks in your classroom. Oh and a word of warning: you can't have them color or do worksheets since those activities are considered 'busy work'. You also may want to figure out where to put the kids you don't have desks for. No, they frown upon making kids sit on the floor.

And listen, be sure and call me when you get home every night to let me know how your day went. Of course, getting home will depend on finding your car in one piece in the parking lot at the end of the day. And if you don't collapse from exhaustion when you do get home, call to let me know how easy your new teaching job is.

Enjoy!!

[zanne]

1. I love it!

I was a teacher for six years. Looking back, I dont' know how I did it. Anybody who is willing to work that thankless job and get paid very little for it has my sincere thanks and admiration.

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. And I thank anyone

who is willing to put in even a few years teaching. So thank you!! :applause:

[Jakes Progress]

3. I taught for twenty-five years

and would do it again if I could do it the way we did then. No frantic test prep. Parents supporting the schools. Wide curriculum to help children become well-rounded.

Now, teachers are given scripts and programs to follow. They are berated by idiots who lack any knowledge of how learning takes place, idiots who control the school boards and give money to right wing nut jobs to run for stage office. I miss teaching. I don't miss the job that teaching has turned into.

[roguevalley]

4. me too. I think getting rid of building principles is a good step too.

the kids and the idea of the job were great. It stopped being that in about 2000.

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. I eagerly await the day I don't miss this job

:)

[bertman]

6. Great comeback. I'm curious as to where (what state) this missive comes from.

Back in the day--the 50's and 60's--our teachers didn't have to have cops in the schools to keep order. The parents of most of the kids respected the teachers and supported their efforts at classroom discipline.

TV was still in its infancy and had not yet become the great leveler of intellectual capacity, so we kids spent our time outside or with friends doing neat things instead of being hypnotized by the tube. Then, later in the evening we got to do our homework. And maybe our parents even helped out with that.

Even the poorest students among us had textbooks, pencils and pens and notebooks; although, they may not have been as cool as the ones the more affluent types had. But it didn't seem to matter all that much.

In my family, reading was encouraged. Once I and my siblings could read we rarely had our parents read to us, but we managed to find neat stuff to read and learn from.

I should post the disclaimer that I grew up in that idyllic post-war period of American growth and prosperity and had the advantage of being a middle-class white kid with parents who were both high school grads. I remember many of my teachers fondly. Even the ones who would grab my ear when I was trying to be the class clown.

My wife went to parochial schools. When she became a local teacher's aide she was mortified by the lack of discipline and the blatant disrespect for teachers that was allowed in the classroom. Fortunately, we live in a university town so my stepdaughters both got excellent educations despite those problems.

[tblue37]

7. You might like to read my article "The Inmates Are Running

the Asylum," on my Teacher, Teacher site:
http://www.teacherblue.homestead.com/inmates.html

It's about how the public schools no longer allow teachers to exercise any meaningful authority in the classroom, and the parents freak out if anyone dares to correct their little darlings, no matter ow outrageously the child behaves. As a result, the least socialized children in the room can contaminate the learning environment for everyone.

[bertman]

11. Thanks. I'll check it out. I know this is going to get me in deep shit with my fellow libruls at DU

but I'm going to say it anyway.

Where I come from in N.C. there were never any serious discipline problems in school that were not dealt with quickly and sometimes harshly (paddling, suspension and expulsion) if the principal felt that action was warranted. That type of authoritarian approach kept the peace and allowed the teachers to teach and the students who wanted to learn to do so. The breakdown in discipline started after we integrated public schools. It began when white teachers would try to discipline black students who were being disruptive. There would be a collective howl of racism from the black parents because they were so hypersensitive about white people telling their kids what to do. This really got ugly for a few years while the old guard of white teachers and principals tried to deal with the new reality of mixed race schools and strong civil rights lawyers who were willing to take on anything that had even a whiff of white teachers putting down black kids. It broke down into white teachers and administrators vs. black teachers and administrators constantly battling over basic classroom discipline.

Soon after that there was no discipline. The white kids saw that the black kids were getting away with being abusive and disruptive, so they started doing it too. (Not to say that a lot of white kids hadn't tried it before, but the old authoritarian style had kept them in check). So began the disciplinary problems in our public schools and the white flight to private schools.

This is a very sad story but it's true. And it's having its negative impact to this day. I doubt that public schools will ever come to grips with this due to the sensitive nature of the whole matter.

I know it probably won't do any good at this point to say this, but I believe strongly in having integrated, well-funded, well-equipped schools for every American community. But I also believe that teachers and administrators must be empowered to keep order in the classroom if students are going to be given an opportunity to learn.

Okay, now fire away.

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. Actually I think you are close but didn't quite hit on the right reason

I have spent 28 years teaching mostly minority kids. There is a white/black disconnect between teachers and kids but I haven't seen what you reported. The vast majority of the black parents I have worked with are very strict with their kids, much stricter than white parents. Black parents are more likely to spank and use other physical punishments when disciplining their kids. They raise their voices more often and are not as likely to reason with kids, as white parents do.

So when a black kid misbehaves for a white teacher and the teacher corrects him/her in the way we teachers are taught to do, it sometimes goes in one ear and out the other. We are not nor can we ever be as strict as their parents are.

Smart white teachers figure this out eventually and learn to be a little stricter with black kids. We also learn to use that threat of calling Mom. The kids know that Mom won't be nearly as understanding as the teacher is and for most black kids, that threat of a phone call works. For those who need a little firmer approach, a private discussion (out of earshot of the other kids) with a firm tone works very well. I call it the 'get in their face so they can smell your breath' approach.

I think most teachers can tell stories of calling parents to report problems and the parent beats the kid. That puts teacher in a tough situation. For those kids we have to learn to solve our discipline problems without involving the parents.

So yes there is a cultural difference but I have not had many black parents accuse me of racism or try to undermine my classroom control. I can only think of one black parent who pulled that in all the years I have taught.

I also am adamantly opposed to corporal punishment at school. I didn't want my kids beat at school so I won't do it to anyone else's kids. Besides, they call that child abuse and I would lose my job. :)

[bertman]

14. Thanks for the thoughtful reply. You are surely right based on your personal experience; however,

I'd like to point out that the time frame I am referencing is 1966 through the early 70's.

I don't want to downplay your experience, but the early years of integration, especially in the South, were very difficult. Since I was in the Army during that late 60's period I am speaking second-hand. But the gist was that there was so much racial tension and animosity (remember the riots, Dr. King's and Bobby Kennedy's assassinations) that many blacks seemed to think that any discipline of black students by white teachers and administrators was "trying to keep blacks in their place". My guess is that attitude has changed with time, but it was prevalent during the early years. As I said, I was no longer in public schools but my sister, my brother and many of my friends and family were. They were very bitter about the way things were in the classroom--students and parents alike--because they had come to expect a learning experience and were being subjected to a chaotic anti-academic environment and frequently interracial violence.

it's a sad chapter in our country's history, but understanding it may help us all to work toward a better solution for our children and grandchildren's future.

Thank you for your efforts on that front.

[Hangingon]

8. Kansas City Star

It was in the Saturday morning edition. The article is on the latest action by a dysfunctional school board. The district is not doing well and has not been doing well for many years. You will have to go to te archives to get the article. Be sure to read all the comments and look at the votes to get a full appreciation of the frustration of the community on the board and school performance.

[proud2BlibKansan]

9. There is a link in the OP

[bertman]

12. Thanks Hangingon and proud2bBlib.

[LWolf]

10. Great to see.

:thumbsup:

[Donald Ian Rankin]

15. At least one of the problems is the opposite of what my friends teaching in the UK face.

"Oh and know what you want to teach and what books you want to use, since the district won't have a Reading program in place "

One of the regular complaints I hear from several of my schoolteaching friends is too many government programmes, and not enough freedom to teach.

[Snarkturian Clone]

16. Some districts, especially city ones, will suddenly

get into some teaching philosophy that's cool right now and FORCE you to teach that way. Last year my school did this TAP program thing, which had a basic philosophy of You Are a Shitty Teacher If You Don't Teach Like Every Other Teacher.

Sort of like turning teachers into mindless skill-less McD's workers who are taught certain procedures and certain timelines all done at the same time and the same rate so all the teachers teach exactly the same. They actually thought that because it worked in some podunk rural town that it would work in the City of Philadelphia.

Your evaluation scores would be determined not by if your kids learned but if you kept to the standardized program. The further away you were from the program, the worse you scored. The kids' learning was a secondary concern.