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Posting on behalf of occasional contributor Quorri Scharmyn...
Here’s what’s wrong with education: people are idiots, parents are worthless, and there are too many kids in classrooms. Stop throwing money at specialists and curriculum packages, stop thinking that if we plan and sit through more meetings things will change, and stop cramming as many students as you can into a classroom. While you are at it, force parents to give a crap about their kids and then, I promise you, we will have smarter and more capable children graduating more often with more productive and satisfying lives.
Idiocy abounds in public education and I’m not sure why. You’d think there would be more intelligent people drawn to the professions that support intelligence, but you’d be thinking wrong. It’s my first career so I guess it’s possible that there are this many idiots in every sector of the populace, but it still blows my heavy mind. The counselor who is supposed to support students in receiving the services they need can’t understand words I speak, she specifically does and says the opposite of what I communicate to her and then is confused about why things don’t work out. She is not the only ass-tard. Many of the teachers I work with simply tell their students to do worksheets or assignments out of books and then proceed to spend the entire class period sitting at their desk. I have no idea what they actually think they are doing, but it is not teaching.
Then I get parents who want to know why their son or daughter is failing my class. They are angry and they are rude, they question me as though I should be ashamed or apologetic. You know what they never ask? “How often is my son/daughter on task in your classroom?” “How many of the past ten assignments has my son/daughter turned in?” “How often has my son/daughter taken advantage of the extra time and help you offer to anyone who cares to use it?” And the non-existent answers for those non-existent questions are almost always “never”, “none”, and “very little”. So, I ask you, how the crap am I responsible for that failing grade? Where was this parent all the many evenings and weekends that the student could have been catching up on missing work or asking for help? Did that parent ever teach their kid the value of education or of taking responsibility? No. So, eat me. Your kid can suck it.
Then the all-important District or the administration of our building or our learning community partners tell us how we should teach in order to have more success. We should ask questions this way, correct homework that way, practice this approach, use these tools, document every interaction anyone ever has with anyone, and call every student’s parent every day. And we should do all of that during the only 50, paid minutes of the day that students aren’t in our class. Oh, and we should also do all of our curriculum planning and grading during that same time while also meeting with students and parents who need to meet, or with any other teachers or counselors who need to chat with us. And, oh yeah, don’t forget that is for at least two separate classes we are teaching, if we are lucky enough to only teach two separate classes and not four or five.
Sure, no problem. That shit is easy. Especially since all of the classes at my school have 30 kids in them and 10 of those are either kids who don’t speak English, who are at very low skill levels because they have learning disabilities, or are emotionally and behaviorally disturbed and need special attention. No sweat. And, yeah, while I’m off doing this, you all just keep on voting tax money away from education or, when you do spend money, spend it on more standardized testing, more specialized curriculums, more studies, or more pointless trainings for teachers. That will definitely make things better. While you are at it, start firing teachers who happen to get stuck with classes full of Special Ed students who were mainstreamed too early, English Language Learners who can’t actually speak English, and kids of parents who just don’t care about their child’s education enough to actually take time every day to support it when those students don’t pass an arbitrary test. And then shoot me, because this is too much fun.
Here’s what’s wrong with education: people are idiots, parents are worthless, and there are too many kids in classrooms. Stop throwing money at specialists and curriculum packages, stop thinking that if we plan and sit through more meetings things will change, and stop cramming as many students as you can into a classroom. While you are at it, force parents to give a crap about their kids and then, I promise you, we will have smarter and more capable children graduating more often with more productive and satisfying lives.
Idiocy abounds in public education and I’m not sure why. You’d think there would be more intelligent people drawn to the professions that support intelligence, but you’d be thinking wrong. It’s my first career so I guess it’s possible that there are this many idiots in every sector of the populace, but it still blows my heavy mind. The counselor who is supposed to support students in receiving the services they need can’t understand words I speak, she specifically does and says the opposite of what I communicate to her and then is confused about why things don’t work out. She is not the only ass-tard. Many of the teachers I work with simply tell their students to do worksheets or assignments out of books and then proceed to spend the entire class period sitting at their desk. I have no idea what they actually think they are doing, but it is not teaching.
Then I get parents who want to know why their son or daughter is failing my class. They are angry and they are rude, they question me as though I should be ashamed or apologetic. You know what they never ask? “How often is my son/daughter on task in your classroom?” “How many of the past ten assignments has my son/daughter turned in?” “How often has my son/daughter taken advantage of the extra time and help you offer to anyone who cares to use it?” And the non-existent answers for those non-existent questions are almost always “never”, “none”, and “very little”. So, I ask you, how the crap am I responsible for that failing grade? Where was this parent all the many evenings and weekends that the student could have been catching up on missing work or asking for help? Did that parent ever teach their kid the value of education or of taking responsibility? No. So, eat me. Your kid can suck it.
Then the all-important District or the administration of our building or our learning community partners tell us how we should teach in order to have more success. We should ask questions this way, correct homework that way, practice this approach, use these tools, document every interaction anyone ever has with anyone, and call every student’s parent every day. And we should do all of that during the only 50, paid minutes of the day that students aren’t in our class. Oh, and we should also do all of our curriculum planning and grading during that same time while also meeting with students and parents who need to meet, or with any other teachers or counselors who need to chat with us. And, oh yeah, don’t forget that is for at least two separate classes we are teaching, if we are lucky enough to only teach two separate classes and not four or five.
Sure, no problem. That shit is easy. Especially since all of the classes at my school have 30 kids in them and 10 of those are either kids who don’t speak English, who are at very low skill levels because they have learning disabilities, or are emotionally and behaviorally disturbed and need special attention. No sweat. And, yeah, while I’m off doing this, you all just keep on voting tax money away from education or, when you do spend money, spend it on more standardized testing, more specialized curriculums, more studies, or more pointless trainings for teachers. That will definitely make things better. While you are at it, start firing teachers who happen to get stuck with classes full of Special Ed students who were mainstreamed too early, English Language Learners who can’t actually speak English, and kids of parents who just don’t care about their child’s education enough to actually take time every day to support it when those students don’t pass an arbitrary test. And then shoot me, because this is too much fun.
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- Other Apps
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