If you think teaching is so easy try it. You wake up at 5 in the morning, work on administrative chores until you catch the bus at 6:30am, arrive at school, pick up the lunches, then get the kids off the bus and in their seats by 9:00Am to lead the pledge under a picture of the President. Then it is teachable moments in block time and always an extra meeting to squeeze in so you always miss your 20 minute lunch. and then kids are on the bus or waiting in your classroom after class ends at 2:40 and it is 3PM before you have time to go to the bathroom. You are used to this however and never drink water during the day. Dehydration and kidney stones down the road for you but you don't have time now to worry because there is a teacher's meeting until 3:30PM and a parent is coming by for a visit. You finally get a bus back home miss one connection but make another and wolf down some food and it is 6:45PM. Then it is grade papers, post benchmarks to the database and develop a powerpoint presentation for the Easter/Spring program. It is now time for the 10 o'clock news and then Letterman and hope you are able to fall asleep within the hour because it starts again at 5AM. It has been this way for over 20 years. Public school. Down and dirty.
For poor public school students ...normal students confused by their parents racial animosities being lived out in their lives. Being encouraged to fight their way out of the hood Race war. Mean (really mean) cops. Homicides all the time. Drug wars in the neighborhood, drive-bys. More than a K-3 can possibly be expected to comprehend. Grow up fast. Get tough. Feel bad when you overstep your toughness and hurt somebody. Wounds take a long time to heal. There is that bully who hits you all the time and looks for you on the playground, sits behind you and kicks your chair...Dad loses his job and beats you and you start to withdraw into a place you will never leave...Teacher asks you about the bruise and is required to bring it to the child protective services...now when Dad gets mad he talks about the teacher and draws you into the spiral of hatred...things get worse...until Dad leaves home...
"unprecedented commitment to ensure that anyone entrusted with educating our children is doing the job as well as it can be done." ..."We need to make sure our students have the teacher they need to be successful. That means states and school districts taking steps to move bad teachers out of the classroom. Let me be clear: if a teacher is given a chance but still does not improve, there is no excuse for that person to continue teaching." -Barack Obama 10 march 2009
--what a totally arrogant and elitist thing to say Barry. Kids are a product of their early parentally controlled environment. When they reach 6 they are 85% formed. Good parents = good kids. But in the school environment parents often behave like typical Americans and refuse to read to their kids in English. For 60% of my students' parents, school allowed them to work by babysitting their kids. This is not your LA law kind of family. It is part-time or unemployed and food stamps and WIC. It is living in a car and getting to school anyway...handout clothes collected by the teacher over the years...
"The challenges of a new century demand more time in the classroom," ..."If they can do that in South Korea, we can do it right here in the United States of America." -Barack Obama 10 march 2009
--This sounds like forcing more free daycare on teachers by extending their hours and days for the benefit of some sort of mercantile renaissance you are having in mind. Using Korea is very bad framing... something starts to concern me....just doesn't feel right...
