Writes one commenter on the NYT article "Teachers Can’t Hold Students Accountable. It’s Making the Job Miserable."
The top-rated comment is especially interesting:
To offer one example to supports Grose's article, I asked a student where their essay was. It had been assigned a week before, and we used two of the class days since to work on it in class. I monitored progress over their two days and reminded students about the due date when we moved onto the next unit. The day the essays were due, one student told me he had been busy with sports and would turn the essay "once he could get around to it." I told him that he would receive a late penalty, but he would receive credit as long as he turned it in before the end of the marking period. That night, I received a scathing email from the boy's parents castigating me for speaking to her son in such a fashion. She wanted to remind me that her son had other obligations, some more important than my class. I didn't respond to the email that night. When I arrived at school the next morning, I had gotten another email from the same parent demanding to know why I hadn't responded yet. In class, the boy told me that his mom had already emailed me and wanted to know why I hadn't responded. He then held up the phone with her on the line, expecting me to talk to her while we were in class. I politely told him that he should tell his mother I would reply as soon as possible. The problem is this kind of behavior isn't an outlier anymore.
From the article, which is written by Jessica Grose. It's a follow-up to her article from last month, "People Don’t Want to Be Teachers Anymore. Can You Blame Them?"
Posts
81 comments:
Responsibility without authority. That always works.
Sounds as if the school bureaucrats —all the way up to the boards, district heads, regional managers, state bosses— need to be let go. Now. Without another dime wasted on them, to heck with their gold-plated contracts. They can sue.
And the parents need to be given the choice: will you back your child’s teacher in the biggest lesson they need to impart: actions have consequences?
If no, then buh-bye. And don’t come back.
If yes, good, let’s get on with it. Three strikes and they’re out.
It appears that teachers are reaping what they have sown.
These kinds of families popped up occasionally in my youth. One such family moved next door to my parents. These families feel entitled to use your property, speak casually and matter of factly about assigning you to do their yard work while they’re away at their condo. The kids are the ones that have the big parties when the parents are away…
Tag: Covfefe World
Welcome to a dystopian world experiencing a sudden 25% intelligence reduction...apparently from reliance on smart phones. How will the script writers get us out of this mess in Act III?
A few years back, I had a semester-long middle-school sub job for an inner-suburb district near KC. Very "diverse" -- roughly 1/3 each of blacks, hispanics, and assorted whites, asians, and mixed.
That sets the scene for what happened a week later, when a black kid pulled an 8-inch knife on me and started saying "I'm gonna CUT you." ... "No, you're not." repeated back and forth a few times as he advanced in the shocked silence of the classroom. I ordered him to stop and drop the knife. He did not, saying "You can't touch me. You'll lose your job." ... "Right now, I don't give a shit about my job. Drop the knife." Another step, to maybe 5 feet away. "Look at this grey hair. I've had a long and good life, and I could die tonight anyway. You? You're just 14, and I'm telling you that if you don't drop that knife and back away, it will be the last mistake of your very short life."
I stepped towards him. He dropped the knife and fled to a corner where he curled up and began to bawl. I followed him, and as he sobbed he became a vignette of so much of what is culturally wrong in America these days. "Can you be my Daddy? I need a Daddy to kick my ass when I fuck up." I've taught on and off for over 50 years, and the changes I've seen are shocking.
The vast (but accurate) over-simplification is that within a framework of disintegrating mores and cultural norms education has come to be dominated by young, inexperienced, weak WOMEN who administratively codify their own social pathologies. By contrast, in my youth, many of the teachers, janitors, bus drivers, and principals were WWII combat veterans who tolerated no truculent nonsense or defiance, but who had the perspective to ignore the harmless foibles of youth.
As for that class, I informed them that I would not report the incident to the SRO or the administration, and we made a class pact that we'd not tell ANYONE about what had happened. At the end of the semester, the knife-kid had his first B ever, and he knew he had *earned* it. On subsequent sub assignments kids from that class would come up to me at lunch, thank me, and share their lives. One day in a Grade 11 class the knife-kid came up to me, hugged me, and said "Last term, I made honor roll. Thanks." There were a few tears for each of us.
Kids these days are starving for genuine discipline, guidance and firm love. What they're getting instead is petty, over-feminized, immature, chickenshit rules which don't address the core issues of that transition from youth to adulthood. They are commonly ill-served by the system, and the academic outcomes are sadly predictable.
This is disturbing, but not as disturbing as Althouse tagging a post that mentions Eddie Haskell "Dobie Gillis" instead of "Leave It to Beaver."
I would have taken the phone and reminded his mother that I had other obligations, some more important than responding to her email.
Then I would have hung up.
No one can teach a people who are too proud to learn. That’s why pride is a damning sin in the literal sense of the word. It stops learning and progress. It’s our pride that is leading to our destruction as a society, right now.
Long story I will try to keep short. My son struggled mightily in life after the death of his brother, until he realized he wanted to be a teacher, He finally had a goal and achieved it, teaching at a Title 1 middle school at the start of the pandemic. His first year he was identified as a good candidate for administration, and was picked at the end of that year to be the head of the 6th grade teachers (not a managerial duty, more simple coordination and communication). After two years he was done with teaching. His problem was the opposite of the comment around helicopter mother. Kids and their parents generally were VERY disengaged. The other problem was discipline. Most kids were fine, but a few were very disruptive and uncontrollable and the administration lacked the tools, guts and/or ability to help control the situation in his school. My super liberal son is now a banker. If my son, who was pulled out of a deep depression by a desire to teach and love of teaching, gave up after 2 years I’m not sure who will want to teach anymore.
Well, the problem all started when gender crusaders began insisting on using a plural third person pronoun with a single subject to avoid saying "his," even when the subject is a male: "I asked a student where their essay was." Illogical thought is but a short step to insanity. And Lord knows our society has gone insane.
Our educational system seems almost deliberately designed to promote failure, to produce ignorant adults. I say "seems" only because the forces that created this mess have their own agendas and are not necessarily coordinated or able to take a big picture view of the situation the are creating. Greed, narcissism, and laziness are enough to explain what they have done/are doing.
I have a friend that taught in the UNC system ten years ago..
Even back then, she would receive calls from her students moms..
Wanting to know WHY their daughter didn't get an "A" on their paper.
She'd try to explain that the daughter didn't get an "A" on her paper, because her paper wasn't "A" work*.
The moms would invariably say: "That's IMPOSSIBLE! My daughter worked 'hard' on that!"
She tried to explain the concept of 'worth'.. But it wasn't worth it. It very much bothered her that her students thought their mommies should argue their grades
"A" work* That professor told ME; that "B means BAD.. It wasn't like the girls were failing.
"...and some of us’ll stand up
To meet you on your crossroads"
If I were the teacher who wrote the comment, I would tell the boy’s mother that I have other students and that since her son shows such low initiative to meet class obligations, he was not my most pressing concern. In short, I’d throw her words back to her.
Equity.
It's not the kids, it's not the parents, it's not even the teachers nor admins. It's that our entire K-12 system is 50 years out of date. The idea that the approach to educating kids is to group them by age, shove 25-30 of them into a cinder block room then assume they're all at the same level and speed is absurd.
It's the politically connected, but hopelessly ossified system. You can't reform it. This beast doesn't want to be reformed. Kill it.
Ugh. Our education system is so entirely broken. From the inner cities to the outer exurbs. Bad schools and bad teachers are one thing. The teachers unions are another thing. But ultimately, it comes down to parenting. And we have such a dearth of it in this country right now.
A great parent, or here's a novel idea- a pair of great parents can work with their kids, with their kids teachers, to make sure they're getting their work done, to help them at home if needed. Or...if the school sucks, to work on getting the schools better (via school board meetings) or getting them into another school, if possible. But if a parent doesn't care, or has some cockamamie idea that their kid is going to be a star athlete so they don't need to know how to spell athlete, well then...the parent is the problem.
Our kids cannot read, add, or think. And they certainly cannot compose a paragraph. Good luck in the near future, everyone.
Doe the article say what the course was?
Is it even legal for a professor to speak with the parent of an adult (over 18) student about coursework?
Do the students do any better at inferential think and the other things mentioned as lacking on entrance when they graduate.
Why can't the prof tell the mother to fuck off when she tries to get involved?
John Henry
And, as usual, no racial information from the commenter. Whatsoever.
I've been lurking at the teachers sub for years now and this is all normal. Yes the proggy teachers admit all this *against interest* and ask each other for advice.
When I occasionally interject that it was NOT normal when I was in school they assure me that's because students were regularly beaten for misbehaving!!
Either that or I was "privileged" to go to a richie rich white suburban school.
Who knew.
As the son of a professional teacher whose career started in the late 40's, I can say that the problem with students and parents isn't new, it's just worse.
One thing that I hear repeatedly from teachers I know is that the administration won’t back them up when they discipline a kid. They send a bad actor to the principal’s office and the principal sends them right back without any sort of consequences. I hear this from teachers who tech in all kinds of settings, not just public schools and not the same school systems.
It is happening not just in English but also in math.
https://thehill.com/opinion/education/4227882-the-k-12-system-keeps-sending-us-students-who-cant-do-algebra-heres-how-to-fix-that/
I saw something that said that many students take 5.5 years to get a degree rather than 4 and it made me think is it because they have to take remedial classes to get them to college level.
My kids are not perfect but this is one of the reasons I took them out of public school and put them in Catholic school, the academic structure is more rigorous, they expect more of the students, and the students give it, even if it is grudgingly. They are not always A students and I walk the balance of getting additional help for my child who struggles with executive function, working with the teachers so that we do not coddle him, and always keeping him on track but providing guardrails. Now that he is in 8th grade I am seeing some signs of independence academically.
I can’t tell you how many Philadelphia and Trenton teachers I had in my MBA classes. The smart ones are getting out. The bad ones are retiring in place. The results are obvious.
Michael @7:22, yes!
The fact that the student is an athlete is a red flag. If the athlete is going to a D1 school and playing one of the money-making sports, the ones that the alumni really care about, the situation is very different than a normal student. Student-athletes range from serious students to barely students, and given the recent reforms the student may being paid more than the professor. (This also applies to the non-money-making sports if the athlete is especially attractive or can otherwise leverage non-sports factors.)
Public education is infested with parasites. About 95% of the adminstrators are parasites at this point. The whole thing needs to be torn down and started over. Hence why school choice is being pushed. It won't solve all problems, but when the system is the main problem anything that disrupts the system is useful.
I always hear that teaching is the "most important profession" - perhaps it is time we started finding teachers who were actually good at it.
College professor here. When they arrive to us, skills are lacking. Reasoning is lacking. Writing is lacking. Ability to follow instructions is gone.
What do you suppose this professor is doing to change the way his/her/whatever's university's education department to start putting out teachers who can actually teach (and who have a better understanding of what should be taught)?
Liberal Teachers and Professors helped create this environment and now they are complaining that it makes their job miserable? Where did they think safe spaces would lead?
They have neutered young men out of spite for the "patriarchy". The amount of time spent pushing rainbow flags, body mutilation, and transgenderism...doesn't really help a kid learn to turn in homework on time.
But teachers and professors are more than willing to fire up these same students and take them to Act 10 protests to protect their benefits. They are also willing to drive them into massive, unnecessary student loan debt.
Give us all a break. They should all be forced to take a Self-Awareness seminar.
There is actually a law (FERPA) that prohibits faculty from communicating with adult students' parents (or with anyone else) about students' grades unless the student has signed a waiver. It probably doesn't apply to all communications with parents, but I always ignore emails from parents on that basis, as well as on principle. (I'm a department chair at a university.)
Even so, I was recently pressured by our Dean into a meeting with a student and his professor over a grade after the student's father emailed the Dean, starting his message with a sentence about he is an alum, etc. Of course the Dean caved.
The Karen parents in the NYT comment are typical liberal parents. That's who the liberal teachers and professors like. I'll bet the Mom's for Liberty kids are turning in their homework on time. But they are far right extremists. Such bullshit.
But the parents who get involved and don't want sexually explicit and instructive books in Jr. High libraries are vilified and labeled as terrorists. Some crazy districts like Eau Claire, WI groom kids, and have published policies to keep gender confusion a secret from parents. This all stems from the Hillary/Feminist "It Takes a Village" bullshit.
Well sorry female feminist dominated education system. It also takes an engaged father but ya'll hate them too and have done everything you can to diminish the role of men in child upbringing. Now men just abandon the children they sire and don't even look back.
And here at The University of College we'll finish the job!
My kids had bullshit homework starting in the first grade. After seven hours in school, rather than come home and play outside, and be a kid... they were assigned work that could have been completed, with guidance during the school day. I didn't have homework until seventh grade.
It burns kids out. The "new math" when my kids were in grade school was the dumbest thing EVER!! As a parent you're figuring out the answer the effective way, so you could sit there and help your kid figure out the new Rubics Cube method of multiplying 74x23.
This is why getting a bunch of liberal educators in a room to produce "new" ideas is destructive for everyone.
The Dems don't want an educated citizenry.
He then held up the phone with her on the line, expecting me to talk to her while we were in class. I politely told him that he should tell his mother I would reply as soon as possible.
"Here's a dime, call your mother..."
It appears that teachers are reaping what they have sown.
@Breezy, I would say instead that the teachers are raping what their unions have sown. Small difference, but IMHO an important one.
"When they arrive to us."
"I asked a student where their essay was."
"I monitored progress over their two days"
"I received a scathing email from the boy's parents castigating me for speaking to her son in such a fashion."
You want to know why skills and communication ability are lacking?? Look in the mirror.
There are two old sayings applicable to this entire situation. First, the apple rarely falls far from the tree. Second, let the chips fall where they may.
Old sayings are useful to trot out when dealing with entitled people, as using an old bon mot or epigram or Aesopian moral often short circuits their planned ranting. Another useful phrase to deny people like the student what they demand is, "No, thank you!" Offered with a smiling face and cheerful tone of voice, the confusion it causes is worth the price of admission.
Now go forth, and sin no more. (See how that works!)
Bart Hall (Kansas, USA) said...
A few years back, ... I need a Daddy to kick my ass when I fuck up.
A few of the young men who joined my stunt group were of that nature. It felt like some of them hung out more with the group on a weekend than with their family.
You might have seen them perform at the KC RenFest. Green and white stripes.
She'd try to explain that the daughter didn't get an "A" on her paper, because her paper wasn't "A" work*.
The problem is that in a subjective grade-inflation culture, objective grading is objectively unfair.
@Bart Hall (6:15), I like you.
“… and I'm telling you that if you don't drop that knife and back away, it will be the last mistake of your very short life." I hope I remember that line if I ever have the misfortune to be in a similar situation.
It is super easy to solve the discipline problem in public schools. Do what the Jesuits have done for decades: A demerit card. (The dreaded words: Give me your card.)
One the student gets 5 demerits, then it is JUG (Justice Under God). After school punishment.
At 20 or 25 demerits, then a conference with parents. At 40 demerits in one semester, subject to expulsion.
Clean, simple and real time accountability and feedback.
It works. But the public schools will never try because it works and the Jesuits came up with the idea.
A few years ago some new neighbors moved in across the street. They have two boys, one in middle school, one in high school. The high schooler is a complete narcissistic, entitled asshole.
We didn't wonder where he got it from when we began, nicely, to complain about their incessantly barking dog, sometimes three or four hours at a time when they're not home. My wife politely texted the mother at 11:30 pm to wonder where they were and when it would end. The mom was nasty as hell, and soon claimed that she'd "gone above and beyond" to keep her dog quiet and it was our problem that we were annoyed.
I have no doubt that the kid's professors in college will be told that poor Dylan is doing the best that he can, so they should make every accommodation.
Quayle said...
No one can teach a people who are too proud to learn. That’s why pride is a damning sin in the literal sense of the word. It stops learning and progress.
As usual, those old homilies were sledge hammers instead of jeweler's peens. There's nothing wrong with pride appropriately applied. One can take pride in one's desire and accumulation of knowledge or the doing of good works.
That "pride cometh before the fall" doesn't mean pride always brings a fall. It's too bad the phrase didn't reflect your correction of it - "too much pride ...".
@Hugh:
My daughter experienced the same thing until she started teaching at private schools.
@Hugh:
My daughter experienced the same thing until she started teaching at private schools.
Charles W. Kingsfield Jr.: Mr. Hart, here's a dime. Call your mother, and tell her there is serious doubt about you becoming a lawyer.
to Bart Hall (Kansas, USA) said...
best class in had in HS, 1967: retired USMC LTC
Michael said...
It's that our entire K-12 system is 50 years out of date.
You mean from back when it worked?
The idea that the approach to educating kids is to group them by age, shove 25-30 of them into a cinder block room then assume they're all at the same level and speed is absurd.
That's what it was like back when it worked and there was 90%+ literacy and math comprehension.
Sans the "same level" assumption. That wasn't there.
Good luck in the near future, everyone.
I was saying the same thirty years ago, but the future was not so close. We have a civilization that requires an educated population to maintain and the foundation is cracking, the decline is accelerating. Decay used to proceed decade by decade, it now goes year by year.
When I see the word accountability, I can't help but think of Jack Nicholson in the movie As Good as It Gets:
How do you write women so well?
I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability.
Bart Hall (Kansas, USA) @ 6:15 am.
Thank you. YOU made my day. What a wonderful teacher you must have been. That young man was lucky to have you!!
1)Age grouping: Not always the most appropriate education-wise. But given all of the other pathologies of our youth and schools, do we really want 16-year-olds going to school with 11-year-olds? When I taught middle school parents would come in and beg us to retain their kids. The administration always refused. I taught middle school for fifteen years and we never retained a single kid. When I asked about this I was told: "We don't want our kids driving themselves to school". There needs to be a special middle school where those who are discipline problems, or retained more than 1 year, are sent. It won't happen.
2) Social Promotion: I don't know when this began or really understand why, but no one is ever held back. Fail every class your freshman year of high school? You still get to be a sophomore the next year. I had a "junior" last year that hasn't passed a single class yet. I had middle school kids who failed every class for three years and still "graduated" to high school. How well do you think they did as freshmen?
3) The basic underlying problem, as with most of our problems today, is kids being raised in a home with no father. There is no real parenting going on in these homes. You know why most Black kids start school so far behind? 75% of Black kids have no father in the home. (25% of White kids)
4) No engagement. Every year I send home several hundred "please contact me messages" to parents. I might get a dozen replies. The only time I see any parents is when I go to our football games.
5) affluence. Our kids are rich. They have more buying power than any people their age ever has. Conspicuous consumption is the order of the day. They're wearing $300 tennis shoes, $200 airpods, $800 cell phones, gold chains etc. They've got Big screen TVs, computers and X-boxes in their bedrooms. They're pampered and indulged, and if they deign to work fast food, they're getting paid more than $15 an hour. They're living the good life, where's the need to work hard? My school gives them a free breakfast, lunch and dinner so the EBT cards can be put to better use. Worse, they're still convinced that the United States is a terrible place to live in, and it's so much better everywhere else.
6) The scariest one of all. "Why do I need to learn this, I can just Google it."
The never-ending discussions about colleges and who gets into the "elite" schools is missing the point. The US spends hundreds of billions of dollars every year on K-12 education and getting poor results for it. Until we actually get serious about K-12 education, the college debate is moot. This is hardly a new problem. "America at Risk" highlighted this issue about 40 years ago and nothing has improved. By most measures, things have actually gotten far worse than back then.
The never-ending discussions about colleges and who gets into the "elite" schools is missing the point. The US spends hundreds of billions of dollars every year on K-12 education and getting poor results for it. Until we actually get serious about K-12 education, the college debate is moot. This is hardly a new problem. "America at Risk" highlighted this issue about 40 years ago and nothing has improved. By most measures, things have actually gotten far worse than back then.
I wonder what organic lab is like these days.
"I was saying the same thirty years ago, but the future was not so close. We have a civilization that requires an educated population to maintain and the foundation is cracking, the decline is accelerating. Decay used to proceed decade by decade, it now goes year by year."
Complex systems will not survive the competency crisis. Even you get it, Chuck.
@Oligonicella
My so started his journey substituting regularly in a private school. Unfortunately they would only hire experienced teachers for full time once he had gotten his Masters in Teaching and was ready. I have thought if he could have started there or in a non-Title 1 school he might have stuck with it. When he decided to quit I tried to convince him to move to such a school, but at that point he was done, with no interest in teaching anywhere anymore
chuck said...
We have a civilization that requires an educated population to maintain and the foundation is cracking..
WHY would we need that? We have the media to Tell us WHAT to think and chatbox to tell us HOW to think
Everything is Fine
chuck @ 9:47: "...the decline is accelerating...." Yes. Many processes have feedback and they proceed in a nonlinear way. I guess I would bleakly interesting to try to quantify the decline here, but which metrics to use? The familiar, easy-to-use, widely-understood metric of IQ or SAT (or similar general survey of skill and knowledge) has fallen out of favor --IMHO because it was too damn accurate in exposing the decline.
One bright spot is, the decline will become less and less noticeable as the system adapts to the acceleration. That whistling sound at the passenger window; that shaking of the fuselage; that smell of smoke in the cabin? We'll adapt. And those of us with the longer perspective, arguably more able to detect the decline? We grow older, fewer and quieter with each passing day.
AI will finish up the dumbing of America that smart phones started. Why learn map skills when your GPS can direct you? Similarly, why learn to think when your AI buddy can do that for you.
If I did not know for sure that our nation's elite have everybody's best interests in mind, I might think that running crappy public schools, opening the borders, legalizing drugs, and decriminalizing shoplifting and other antisocial activity that used to be frowned upon might be all part of an intentional plan to divide society permanenetly between the haves and the have-nots.
mikee said...
There are two old sayings applicable to this entire situation. First, the apple rarely falls far from the tree.
You are a SEXIST RACIST pig for saying THAT!
Second, let the chips fall where they may.
TRANSPHOBE!!! take your Homophobia AWAY from here! You TRANSPHOBE!!!
ps. not entirely Sure How you are a Racist Sexist TRANSPHOBE; but you're criticizing the teachers union;
so you CLEARLY ARE
Terrific comment, Bart Hall. Great story. Thanks for writing it.
Crap like that was why I never wanted to teach full time. My three semesters as an adjunct drove it home.
I never had a parent come at me, but I had to hold the line against several student whiners. One young lady could only process her poor test grade as being the result of opinions that she "had a feeling" I had. I told her that there were processes for making formal complaints (though I had no idea, really) and that she was welcome to pursue them. I think she dropped.
Another young lady, who was often late and sometimes absent, complained that the poor grade I gave her was keeping her out of law school the next fall. I told her (and the department head, who she had contacted) that I reviewed her final exam and in truth I had been rather lenient--my evaluation stood. The dept head backed me up and she went away.
I'm not sure I could have survived either encounter under today's conditions.
One factor (just one!) is that if the teacher or principal gives out strict punishments like being out of school a few days, that is counted against the school by the district and state, thanks to Pres. Obama's education dept.
Another factor (also, just one) is that teachers are encouraged and even required to spend serious amounts of their time and their value for students on social and emotional development, including anti-bullying, anti-racism, gender diversity, social justice. Students can and do value intellectual challenge, opportunities to figure out the real world that is opening for them. They don't value sermons and being asked to repeat back to the teacher what the teacher has told them.
@PrimoStl: And, as usual, no racial information from the commenter. Whatsoever.
That's a routine giveaway. No mention of race in crime or education or drug use or life challenges indicates the precise concern.
If you are bored, take a look a the crime-by-race tables published by the FBI, and ask yourself why they show only raw percentages, not more useful comparisons to the group population sizes.
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/topic-pages/tables/table-43
Versus:
https://usafacts.org/data/topics/people-society/population-and-demographics/our-changing-population/
Bart Hall:
Nearly all the teachers at Creighton Prep were men. The demerit card system made discipline easy.
At that time, some of the teachers would smack us around. We were afraid of some of them and, especially, the Prefect of Discipline, Father Pork.
Action without responsibility. Self-esteem without productivity. Pride and prejudice.
There's a story in the Daily Mail (best US newspaper) about how a number of the baseball players on the Mitchell, South Dakota team have been charged with two rapes. Two! South Dakota!
What struck me about that comment was how grammatically incorrect it was from start to finish. Perhaps I shouldn't be too critical of an internet comment, and I normally wouldn't be, but this was a comment written, I assume, by a professor in a college humanities department complaining about the lack of rudimentary ability in the students they are being asked to teach. Doctor, heal thyself!
Bart Hall, Gahrie, and other teachers have my respect. My mother's family was full of them, back in the day.
I never had to sub, like many of my friends did, and I spent one afternoon in 1972 or so as a teacher's assistant in a middle school. That was enough.
Shortly before I earned my MLIS I was a finalist for a history teaching job at one of our tonier coed prep schools. If I had had an MA in history in hand they would have picked me, and in all honesty I'm glad they didn't. I would have been expected, if not to actually coach anything, to show up and cheer at games. I had never done that before, and still don't.
All these negative comments.
Don't you fools know the solution is more (and more, and more) money?
They really need a gynecologist!
"The Dems don't want an educated citizenry."
Then why does it appear that the Republicans are the lesser-educated segment of the citizenry, (as indicated by their choices of candidates)?
When I was growing up, parents supported the teacher.
Now they attack the teacher.
That's a major sign of cultural decline. Very hard to fix that.
By the time of the day I get around to Althouse to read some of threads, most of the good points [and some of the bad] have been already made. It's a testament to the quality of comments and the variety of experiences that folks to bring to the table. Eleventy!!
School choice is the human rights issue of our time. Absolutely destroying the teachers unions [and all other government workers unions] would be a good start. Are federal gov't unions by congressional law or by presidential executive order?
" I asked a student where their essay was"
Plural pronoun with singular referent. There's the problem.
When I was in grade school in the 1950s in Newton, Massachusetts ,I only had one male teacher. All the rest were women, young, old, and in between. My grade school had no disciplinary problems to speak of. Of course, almost every child came from a two-parent home, divorce was extremely rare, and it was incomprehensible that a woman might have a child alone, without a husband. I believe those were much important factors than the fact that teachers unions were not then permitted.
"Then why does it appear that the Republicans are the lesser-educated segment of the citizenry, (as indicated by their choices of candidates)?"
A week or so ago, I posted a short list of Trump's accomplishments as president and one of the resident LLR's here commented that the things I mentioned were all just a continuation of Obama's accomplishments. How unintelligent must a leftist be, to be complaining about Trump if he was furthering Obama's policies? What more might a leftist want, than have a Republican president advancing Democrat causes? Not very bright, those Dems.
@Hugh:
That's too bad. Obviously, we have a plethora of teachers but a dearth of good ones. My daughter's first assignments were inner city so she could disconnect that from other schools she had her eyes on. I mean, she teaches physics and forensic science. Not a lot of call for that in the inner city schools. She said most of those kids were easily four or five graces behind in everything.
Robert Cook said...
Then why does it appear that the Republicans are the lesser-educated segment of the citizenry, (as indicated by their choices of candidates)?
Because you picked a checkbox entirely from your subjectivity and examined it with your personally tinted glasses.
Smilin' Jack said...
" I asked a student where their essay was"
Plural pronoun with singular referent. There's the problem.
Could you formulate that sentence correctly without referring to the student's sex, please?
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