Why?

[archenemy]

Might be a good thing. Get a real shortage going and then they might start getting paid what they're worth. Bongs and baggies would be the signing bonus.

[billcoe]

Fairweather, what kind of cloisterd F*ucked up life you must have lived. Get your priorities straight.

 

When I was in HS, the Vietnam war was raging. Best teacher I had was against the war. His name was Mr Fetzer and it was my sophmore year -1969. He stimulated our thoughts and fired up the class more than every other damn teacher together they had in the friggan school. They appeared to only be there for a paycheck.

 

This dude was there for us. For US. It was very powerful.

 

He cared less on what you thought and more on the process of how you got there. We had the most stimulating debates and presentations of my HS years in that history class. We worked our ass off for the guy. You couldn't avoid it.

 

I don't know why you send your kids to school, but for me, I want teachers to help facilitate "Critical thinking" in my children. Our country will be a better place if more citizens can do this.

 

As long as my kids are safe, I could give a rats ass if the teachers smoke pot in their personal lives. So WHAT? It is the last thing I could give a damn about.

 

Judging from your atitude, you may be thinking I am saying this to support my personal position and ability to smoke the stuff. Do I smoke it? NO. I could if I wanted too, I co-own my own business and don't have a big brother watchdog who wants me to pee into a cup. But it makes no difference if I did or didn't - it's a non-event.

 

So........did Mr Fetzer smoke pot? I don't know. Maybe or maybe not. I suspected he smoked pot, but that was pure presumption as he was anti-war and had the long hair thing going, but it would have made no difference either way.

 

He was later fired for his political beliefs, which was humorous as he was fine with students supporting the war...ONLY as long as they had thought it through, for themselves - and could justify it.

 

The rest of the teachers I had were not worth a F*CK. Not a one. They plodded through their books and prayed you'd sit there quietly. They punched a clock.

 

Tick Tock.

 

My Junior year, I basically gave up on HS.

 

I bet Ivan is the best teacher they have in that school, he's certainly well read and highly literate. Although I've only been out a few times with the dude, from what I know, I'd love to have my kids as students of his. FYI, we had the boy in a high priced private school during his middle school years cause his school had too many clock punchers- and he wasn't connecting, despite his obvious intellegence.

 

So get your priorities straight please.

[tvashtarkatena]

Your president uses or used cocaine regularly, why aren't you trying to have HIM removed?

 

Not getting caught using cocaine: Not illegal.

[tvashtarkatena]

If they started drug testing teachers the education system would fall apart, seriously.

 

If teachers only worked their contracted hours, and spent none of their personal funds on their classrooms without reimbursement, the education system would crumble even further than it has already.

 

If teachers were effectively teaching students how to think, then we wouldn't be using phrases such as "President Bush".

 

or drug testing...

[kevbone]

You go Bill!

 

Maybe FW would like his kids to be taught by......

 

[BillA]

If teachers only worked their contracted hours, and spent none of their personal funds on their classrooms without reimbursement, the education system would crumble even further than it has already.

 

Oh yes, I am well aware of that fact as I spend my days substitute teaching in classrooms throughout East Multnomah county.

[JayB]

The best teacher I ever had taught my 11th grade English class. She left behind a more lucrative career on account of her love for the subject, and she was extremely motivated, talented, and inspiring. She also had zero seniority, so when the enrollment dropped a bit, guess who had to go? She was clearly the best teacher in the department, if not the school, but the dead-weight POS lifers stayed, and she got shipped off to an assignment that was a total mismatch for her talents and aspirations, and she gave up on the profession a couple of years later.

 

Anyhow - here's a question for the teachers out there. Could a competitive voucher system where drive and talent matter more than seniority possibly produce a worse market for your skills that the one you're in now? Could the pay and respect afforded to teachers be any worse than it already is in the current system? Is the status quo - which brought us the situation that I described above, and millions more like it every year - really producing such great results for students and teachers that any attempt to disrupt it will invariably lead to something worse?

[TREETOAD]

Here is how school will be soon enough, pretty doggone scary!!

 

http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/video.php?id=1316

 

 

 

[kevbone]

That is scary!

[ivan]

The best teacher I ever had taught my 11th grade English class. She left behind a more lucrative career on account of her love for the subject, and she was extremely motivated, talented, and inspiring. She also had zero seniority, so when the enrollment dropped a bit, guess who had to go? She was clearly the best teacher in the department, if not the school, but the dead-weight POS lifers stayed, and she got shipped off to an assignment that was a total mismatch for her talents and aspirations, and she gave up on the profession a couple of years later.

 

Anyhow - here's a question for the teachers out there. Could a competitive voucher system where drive and talent matter more than seniority possibly produce a worse market for your skills that the one you're in now? Could the pay and respect afforded to teachers be any worse than it already is in the current system? Is the status quo - which brought us the situation that I described above, and millions more like it every year - really producing such great results for students and teachers that any attempt to disrupt it will invariably lead to something worse?

can you explain your "competitive voucher system" more? do you mean charter schools? merit pay for teachers?

 

i don't much complain about teaching pay - it's not like i went into teaching expecting to get rich - i do see my vacations as a form of compensation and i use them fully - i wonder how much more the system can really pay teachers at any rate, given that there are so many schools and even marginal increases add up to massive amounts.

 

i find most of the parents and kids i interact w/ have a decent amount of respect for teachers - people generally treat you the way you demand to be treated, yes?

 

i have no problem w/ expecting teachers to do a good job and tying pay to it (in north carolina i recieved a phatty bonus for getting my kids to make improvments on state tests) - there's not a great definition of what a "good job" is, or at least a definition that leads to an easy, defendable evaluation form - teaching, social studies at least, is very much an art and attempting to inject all kinds of scientific psychometrics into it makes me a wee bit nervous

 

seniority rules annoy the hell out of me too - i recently got forced out of the classes i enjoyed the most w/ the kind of kids i connect w/ the most and had to settle for what all the old folks don't want to touch - i try to take the long view, i'll be able to elbow my way back in eventually - i don't see a clear alternative

[sobo]

More accurately, the one's who voted him are the real assholes, and that would be us.

 

voted him in? I don't remember that happening

 

Surely you're aware that it is not the popular vote that determines the presidency and vice presidency in this country? Scroll down to the bottom of Chart 3 of 3 to see why your statement makes no sense. It's called the Electoral College, and it's been this way since our Constitution was framed.

 

...In the elections of 1824, 1876, 1888, and 2000, the candidate who received a plurality of the popular vote did not become president. The 1824 election was eventually decided by Congress and thus distinct from the last three which were decided without...