Teachers and the Captive Audience

24Jul/1015

Teachers and the Captive Audience

Let's see... now, we are told, year-round public indoctrination education is a necessity. Because, you know, we have done without it so long that something significant must have changed for the group of people who benefit most from the status quo seek to change it.

The cynical among us will immediately notice this push for what it is.

1) a push-back against people who have decided to yank their kids out of the public education morass. that is, homeschoolers - who tend to be all God-bothery and racisty - desiring, you know, the opportunity to spare their children from statethink. I must say, the un-doing good parents among us must do on a daily basis is quite a task. We must undo all manner of inconvenient memes introduced to and then chiseled into our beloved childrens' brains. Gay "Marriage" and Globular Warmongering come to mind. But, we could easily throw in "alternate" lifestyle marketing, anti-Christian, pro-Muslim fascism.

2) countering the obvious truth that those very high-minded (but not real smart) public indoctinairres are found to be pigs at the trough. Cadillac benefits none but senators and fat unionistas can claim, 3 months off, early retirement, pensions, and secondary careers after retirement... sure. they do it for teh children.

I could go on. And I might.

But there is also another segment of the population who would love for my children to go to school year-round. Namely, "working moms." I put it is quotes because it seems to me the hardest working women I know are the stay-at-home variety, whose work is paramount and from which never is a paid vacation.

Let's face it: if those damnable accessories weren't so damnably demanding a woman might be able to climb the ladder faster and save some cash in the meantime - kids at school do not result in day-care bills, you see.

It is all crap. And it has nothing to do with being competitive. I have observed in the workplace that some folks have the remarkable ability to spend 60 hours doing what should take 40. I have seen projects afforded 250 hours which could have been done in 120 but ended up taking 275 hours. Am I wrong to assume that a teacher might be completely ok making more money doing 1/4 less work any given day - and having 25% more time to do it? Am I wrong to presume that the next step would be to claim, as is always the case, that teh pay will not suffice for having expanded hours?

I guess my real issue has to do with marketing of the concept. We will be told it is for the children. We will be instructed that a year-long school year is necessary for "America to remain competitive in the global economy." This, coming from people who have demon-strated the highest degree of ignorance as it pertains to the marketplace and the basic economic ins-and-outs. But, in reality, the motivation will be most obvious to any who actually retain the ability to critically think: what teachers want these days has ZERO to do with teh Children (who are our future, etc.) and EVERYTHING to do with selfishness.

I say: f*ck em. Next to government bureaucrats, public school teachers are the worst.

Enoch_Root

Person with kids,a beautiful wife, a job. Catholic of the Latin Rite.

Website - More Posts

Filed under: God Bothering, Politicas Desnudas!, Rants, Tavis Smiley & Company Leave a comment

Comments (15) Trackbacks (0) ( subscribe to comments on this post )

Bob Reed
July 24th, 2010 - 09:28

This latest push is simply the “educators” publicly grasping at straws to explain why other nation’s kids score higher, on average, in math, science, and reading. Perhaps if our own teachers spent more time teaching the basics, and less time focusing on social justice, socialistic indoctrination, and inculcating what they consider to be the proper world view and historical narrative to back up that indoctrination, our kids would do as well as any others. By attempting to mold society, in the long run via the long march through the institutions, through the use of the public school system as a tool for indoctrination, instead of actual education, the teachers unions have brought this nation to the point it is at today.

Literacy rates in the early 1900′s exceed those of today-so much for Progress!

This is just a red herring proferred by the intelligentsia as a cover for their poor performance; despit the enourmous sums of money thrown at the problem over the years.

Don’t get me on my soapbox about this stuff!

Like or Dislike: 0 0
( REPLY )
Dede
July 24th, 2010 - 10:46

I don’t like to paint everyone in a group with the same brush. My Aunt Ginger is a public school teacher. She is a Christian, a Conservative, a hard worker, a mom, a grandma, a counselor with the American Red Cross (spent a week in NYC in September of 2001 chatting with some firefighters and policeman who had endured some trauma that month) oh, and she has a black belt in Karate. 5′ 3″, tiny, but scrappy. She really does do it for the children, and has for the last 30 years or so. When her school system cuts the budget, she buys her kids what they need for her classes out of her own pocket. I think there are many teachers in the public school system like my aunt..but I’m sure they are outnumbered by the ones you speak of in your post. (which was excellent by the way and makes me glad I have no children).

It seems to me that when I was in school (I went to public and private schools in the US and schools run by the US military in foreign countries) there wasn’t all this political agenda stuff going on. But maybe I’m just being nostalgic. But today….I’d home school my kids in a flat minute…and not just because the teachers have gone all wonky along with the studies..but because of the metal detectors and drugs and gangs and..and….and….it’s a sad state of affairs we got here.

Like or Dislike: 0 0
( REPLY )
- Bob Reed
  July 24th, 2010 - 12:52
  
  You’re right about the sweeping generalization in my comment Dede. I was speaking about the teachers that adhere to the NEA and AFT “party line”; mostly in the affluent suburbs surrounding large metroploitan areas as well as those cities.
  
  And, I’m in agreement with you that there was virtually no politicization in our youths; that all came later. It accompanied the PC speak revolution and calls by guy like Billy Ayers to incorporate a “social justice” agenda into most facets of the cirriculum. I’m still convinced that at the highest levels of the governing union organizations that a conscious decision was made to begin what many call, “the long march through the institutions”; indoctrinating almost entire generations to agree with their liberal political agenda, divisive identity politics, and transnational point of view-and to believe that any who disagreed with these pillars of liberalism were h8ting racists.
  
  But there are many dedicated. successful, teachers in our country who do it because they care about children, and truly love teaching; and not simply because they couldn’t get “a real” job…
  
  Like or Dislike: 0 0
  ( REPLY )
  - Dede
    July 24th, 2010 - 13:20
    
    The sad thing is, most of the truly talented and dedicated ones…go and teach at private schools or places like Sylvan out of literally a fear for their lives. The government should get out of the educatin’ out children bidness. They can’t afford to properly equip schools and that money could be better spent elsewhere ….like, oh I dunno, giving the Military pay raises.
    
    Like or Dislike: 0 0
    ( REPLY )
  - Instinct
    July 24th, 2010 - 15:16
    
    A constant sight at the book store I work at right now is teachers coming in and buying books and supplies for their kids with their own money.
    
    I know five teachers personally who spent about $300-$500 of their own cash to get books they wanted for their students and since the schools wouldn’t supply it they did it themselves.
    
    One of them told me that almost half of her time isn’t spent doing lesson plans and homework, it’s instead spent filling out paperwork for the government.
    
    Like or Dislike: 0 0
    ( REPLY )
- richard mcenroe
  July 25th, 2010 - 13:58
  
  Sadly, your aunt and teachers like her don’t set the curriculum.
  
  Like or Dislike: 0 0
  ( REPLY )
Instinct
July 24th, 2010 - 15:11

I’m only going to dispute one point here. My mom taught high school and their pay was based on nine months of work, not 12, so the whole ‘three month vacation’ isn’t so. It’s more like three months of unemployment.

Also, during that three months off she spent it making lesson plans for the next semester. I think she worked harder during the summer than she did during the school year.

A constant routine in our house was after dinner she would pull out all the homework from that day and begin grading it. She was usually still at it when us kids went to bed.

Now, this was back in the 70′s and 80′s before the Department of Education had gotten totally up to speed at screwing up everything, but still there are a lot of dedicated teacher out there – it’s the unions and the government I could do without.

Like or Dislike: 0 0
( REPLY )
Enoch_Root
July 24th, 2010 - 15:44

look – this is not about a particular person. it is about the entirety of the public teaching population.

likewise – pls do read up on the pay and pay-in-kind these folks get. 3 months unemployment? hardly.

Like or Dislike: 0 0
( REPLY )
ice9
July 24th, 2010 - 20:56

Holy crap what a bunch of stupid remarks.

Literacy rates in the early 1900’s exceed those of today’

Source please. Can’t find one, because it’s false. American literacy rates have never fallen. Does this refute the author’s (barely literate) assertions about teachers, etc.? Not directly. Two clicks, forty seconds:

Literacy Rates in the United States, by Race, 1870-1979

1900 89.3 93.8 55.5
1910 92.3 95.0 69.5
1920 94.0 96.0 77.0
1930 95.7 97.0 83.6
1940 97.1 98.0 88.5
1952 97.5 98.2 89.8
1959 97.8 98.4 92.5
1969 99.0 99.3 96.4
1979 99.3 99.6 98.4

U.S. Census Bureau. Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970. National Center for Education Statistics. U.S. Department of Education. “Literacy from 1870 to 1979: Illiteracy.” National Assessment of Adult Literacy. Retrieved March 21, 2002 from http://nces.ed.gov/naal/historicaldata/illiteracy.asp.

PS–literacy rate 1989, 1999, and 2009 have fallen by statistically insignificant amounts. This is of course Barack Obama’s fault.

ice9

Like or Dislike: 0 0
( REPLY )
- enoch_root
  July 25th, 2010 - 04:25
  
  correction – it’s Cheney’s fault.
  
  also – is there anything about the actual post you would like to refute?
  
  Like or Dislike: 0 0
  ( REPLY )
- Bob Reed
  July 25th, 2010 - 14:27
  
  Your link doesn’t work, which means you may be lying anyway. But yes, Obama and the progressives own the education failure, because their constituents at the AFT and the NEA have been more intent on pursing a cirriculum frounded in the tenets of post-modernism (multiculturalism, transnationalism, and identity politics). They care more about indoctrination into the liberal core values than, you know, educating our children.
  
  And the BS about needing to school them year-round is just cover for poor performance…
  
  Just like there’s no magic bullet to eliminate racism from society, so too will you never be able to force all parents and families to value education; unless, like, all you statists try and use the force of law to do so.
  
  Like or Dislike: 0 0
  ( REPLY )
Catholic Cowboy
July 24th, 2010 - 23:03

Enoch, would you drop me an email @ mathew1421 at gmail dot com? I have a prayer favor to ask of you.

Like or Dislike: 0 0
( REPLY )
rls
July 25th, 2010 - 08:59

I’m an old man so I remember when schools were in the business of educating children and no social clubs and teachers were instructors and not baby sitters. That being said, education is my soapbox. I firmly believe that most social ills could be corrected in the main by restructuring the educational system, both here and abroad.

If you get rid of all the building, buses and bureaucrats and have just the teacher and the student, the educational process can continue….therefore they are the most important people in education. I don’t slight the teachers (although today’s teachers certainly are nothing like mine of yesterday) but I do fault the system that produces these teachers and inoculates them from accountability.

I really would like to see the teacher esteemed as the professional that they should be and compensated accordingly…..but at the same time I want them to be held accountable for the product that they produce and I want them to compete for that esteem. I would like for there to be total “free choice” for education with parents voting with their dollars for the best. I want the institutions competing for the “best and the brightest” of the educators, voting with their dollars. I want the students competing for entrance into the best schools. I want the reestablishment of vocational institutions with modern vocational programs for students who are not on an “academic track”.

If we provide an environment for learning a marketable skill (computer science, architectural drafting, plumbing, HVAC, metal shop, wood shop, etc,) we would certainly retain many of those “at risk” students that are just barely getting grades or are dropping out of school. We could provide a skill that these kids could take to the job market right out of high school since they are certainly not going to attend college.

I could go on forever but I don’t want to take over the site. but teacher accountability, merit pay for teachers, competing educational institutions, vouchers, vocational training and return of all education decisions to the local level are my main points.

Like or Dislike: 0 0
( REPLY )
Meep
July 25th, 2010 - 14:48

FTR, we’re homeschooling our kids for at least elementary school years, b/c we want to make sure they actually understand math, reading, and grammar.

I don’t trust that the teachers, whether public or private, on that level actually understand that stuff.

If the kids have a good base, it doesn’t matter what b/s is tried later. As long as they know enough to be able to learn from original sources, whereever they’re found, they will do well.

Like or Dislike: 0 0
( REPLY )
- rls
  July 25th, 2010 - 18:30
  
  If the kids have a good base, it doesn’t matter what b/s is tried later. As long as they know enough to be able to learn from original sources, whereever they’re found, they will do well.
  
  You are right, Meep. Teach them to read because they cannot learn much of anything else without reading comprehension.
  
  Like or Dislike: 0 0
  ( REPLY )