The At-Risk Teacher

I am not a believer of hell, but if I were asked to describe my ultimate purgatory it would be to sit down with a bunch of other history teachers and write common lesson plans every week. I was recently asked to do this at a job interview for an "innovative" school. Three of us were asked to plan out a week's worth of lessons in 20 minutes. In twenty minutes we achieved the most apathetic, incoherent, compromised bunch of garbage I've ever seen.

We took each of our, no doubt coherent, educational philosophies and hurriedly amputated arms and legs, throwing bits into the pot, having neither the time nor will to object to what was being created. The result was a Frankenstein of attitudes about learning and students that no one would be able to live with. The Kids Learn Best From Each Other teacher cannot also be the Kids Don't Learn Anything From Each Other teacher. The Creative Project teacher cannot also be the Multiple Choice teacher. The Textbook teacher cannot also be the Down With the Textbook teacher. Would I be exaggerating to say that it's akin to asking a Christian, Muslim, and Jew to sit down, pull out the best parts of their faith, and then require each of them to teach the selected bits of the other faiths as passionately as they would teach their own?

As a teacher who has lost a student to gun violence, my heart absolutely breaks for the teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School. They taught us in Ed School not to get too close to students, and to keep a professional distance. I met a teacher who practically boasted about being the teacher of students who were killed, "execution style," as if I would be impressed by those feathers in his cap. Others I've met are merely indifferent. If I taught Ed School, I would say your heart should break as if that child were your very own. Mine did.

But I've heard precious little about the teachers on the news. I have seen only how some are calling to arm teachers to prevent future tragedies. That would be the solution if the question was, "how can we further disincentivize people to go into the teaching profession?" We pay them meagre wages, expect them to work 50+ hours a week, drown them in bureaucracy, overcrowd their classrooms, and now we can give pistols to these people who have never held a gun and expect them to physically protect their students against psychopaths with automatic rifles.

NPR reported a few months ago that the Denver Public Schools received $2.5 million from a private company to develop on-line learning programs.

NPR reported a few days ago that the graduation rate for new, en vogue, on-line high schools is 22%. The state average is 75%.

Let's reflect on teenagers: They are human beings. They procrastinate. They get distracted easily, especially when they are around anything with buttons. They crave affection and attention, especially from adult role models. They are social beings. They learn from others, and academic peer pressure is priceless. When they don't understand something they need someone to explain it because chances are they won't go to a library and figure it out themselves. They still like getting stickers on their homework when they do a good job.

A history lesson on unions: Worker (Joe the Factory Button Presser) jeopardizes product (plastic crap no one would buy unless a commercial told them they needed it) with a strike in order to pinch customer (guy who really thinks he needs plastic crap and will bitch unless he gets it) which will urge boss (fat bastard who doesn't do anything unless the customer threatens not to buy plastic crap) to acquiesce to worker demands. Result: customer bitches, boss acquiesces, worker wins, plastic crap rolls off the lines once again.

An observation on teacher's unions: Worker (under-paid, under-appreciated teacher) jeopardizes product (sweet child who really needs to learn how to add and subtract) with a strike in order to pinch customer (parent who works two jobs and doesn't really know what goes on with their children from 7:50-2:10) which will urge boss (person who has never set foot in a classroom and who is, in the end, unable to produce money out of thin air since the American People care more about football than education) to acquiesce to worker demands. Result: customer is unable to advocate for the product, boss finds strikes an annoyance, worker loses, product missed a week of school, now struggles to add and subtract, and wonders why no one seems to care about them.