The system is broke--not the teachers. Fuck those who say they are.

I say the teachers pick a day...and just don't show up. All over the country no teachers show up. If you can get them to do that they will have won.

gd, nearly cried at the end.

>> ^Yogi:
I say the teachers pick a day...and just don't show up. All over the country no teachers show up. If you can get them to do that they will have won.


I disagree. It's the kids who lose in that scenario.

Hey, your description must be an homage to my comment here.

"The more I see of the real Matt--the more I like him."

http://videosift.com/video/Matt-Damon-defending-teachers

>> ^Duncan:

>> ^Yogi:
I say the teachers pick a day...and just don't show up. All over the country no teachers show up. If you can get them to do that they will have won.

I disagree. It's the kids who lose in that scenario.


I respectfully disagree.
The kids might miss a day of school (they'd be very sad I'm sure).
But, it would get the attention this subject deserves and might end up making the schools, and the school experience, much better in the long run.

He talks about empowered teachers and leaving behind standardized tests... there are shitty teachers out there, and the standardized BS is all about them. 'Seniority' system and related bullshit are a significant problem.

Personally know someone who was given a district teaching award and fired the same year (she's 27, and was basically told it was because she was a noob and easiest to fire as cuts came down).

This has a lot to do with what is happening in this country. It's a charade, on one hand you have these bizarre christian fundamentalists who say they want "small government" when actually they want to control the lives of Americans through their own personal agendas. Then you have corporations who seek to control the masses through lobbyists so you keep buying their products.

It's relevant because in many public schools they eat subsidized corporate garbage. Some schools have corporate advertising. The school's have PTO's run by a bunch of garbage eating, fundamentalist christians and everyone wants control of some personal agenda & crusade and enforce it on everyone else. Teachers are supposed to be knowledgeable about their topics, fuck your stupid standard curriculum syllabus and let them teach kids the best way they can. Stop making America sterile!

What the hell happened to this country, why does everything have to be controlled and why can't we just listen to one another, argue if need be. Maybe, just maybe I am wrong, maybe you're wrong but hopefully one of us fucking learns something. And if I am wrong I'll admit it, I won't go on some anti-intellectual crusade and try to obscure FACTS. This country needs to relearn what is necessary/unnecessary to control.

Teachers should be paid well. The irony is I went to a private school for Junior High & some high school. All the kids were rich spoiled brats, some of them had lambos & Vipers... the teachers were the best I ever had. But, I could make as much as those teachers working at fucking Kinkos. It's hilarious to think that that really is the way America works. My parents spent 10k a year & those teachers were paid less than 30k/yr. Sure, it was a "better" environment than a public school for those teachers - but their whole objective was to get these brats into Princeton. Oh, but we don't want democratic laws & regulations to tell us how we should run businesses & schools... please.

>> ^Boise_Lib:

>> ^Duncan:
>> ^Yogi:
I say the teachers pick a day...and just don't show up. All over the country no teachers show up. If you can get them to do that they will have won.

I disagree. It's the kids who lose in that scenario.

I respectfully disagree.
The kids might miss a day of school (they'd be very sad I'm sure).
But, it would get the attention this subject deserves and might end up making the schools, and the school experience, much better in the long run.


Basically my line of thinking.

Growing up in Utah, the state with the lowest spending per pupil, I've been in some pretty bad schools. But I never thought the teachers were to blame even as a kid. It was all down to underfunding, overcrowding, bullying and a focus on bad standardized material. I'm not sure I've ever had what I would call a bad teacher, just great ones and adequate ones. The very worst teachers I've had are ones that only had us drill stupefyingly dull textbooks. And that's exactly the sort of teaching that these policies encourage.

I'm not saying bad teachers don't exist. But that there must be a more intelligent and accurate way to identify them that's less directly harmful to students. And at it's core the push to blame teachers is meant to distract the public from the actual problems; underfunding, budget cuts, and badly designed but strictly enforced curriculum.

This man will make me gay someday, I'm just counting down the days I meet him in person.

Stardardised testing is the simplification or abrogation of the need for school administrators to actively be involved with their teachers to properly guide or encourage them if they aren't performing up to par. Much like nanny statism encourages adults to let the state set the rules for their child, rather than encouraging them to engage in good parenting, standardised tests ignores all other factors and makes decisions a simple matter of statistics.

That is not to say that there aren't good and supportive administrators our there, but above them sits the bureaucracy who don't want personal contact, it wants neatly lined up and codified numbers.

And we wonder why the current generation seems more inept and inadequate.

Nobody wants to comment on the irony of the misspelled "education" tag on this vid? Ok I will--it's ironic.