teachers are like every other profession there is good and bad unfortunately you tend to remember the bad more.

having to only deal with a few different doctors, lawyers, etc... and if you find ones you like, you tend to try to keep with them. For teachers, you have to have many, many different ones. Since most people would likely deal with more teachers during their life than they might with many other professions, the chances of finding a few bad ones increases.

Good students and good parents only bother to recall the good ones.

i can guarentee most people have a t least one teacher that didnt exactly inspire them.

for pulling my son out of a class with a teacher who could barely read, write or speak.

we were the lowest rung of government anyone could pummel within their reach, we were the ones who got a career when plenty of others got married, bought cars etc. and we are educated and they didn't go. I got called a socialist by a parent in 1978.

And last but not least. Everyone went to fifth grade so everyone is an expert.

Never underestimate the cretinism of people who think its easy. One male, a doctor came to help in a first grade party my class had. He helped and then walked to the door and stood staring out. I went up and asked how he was and he looked at me and said, "I don't know how you do it."

Attention and keep the class in order. That takes a lot of skill.

Back in the clueless days of college, the assumption we had was the classes were pretty easy and the job allowed for a lot of time off. Most of the guys I knew who became teachers did it because they wanted summers off to surf. Seriously. The women did it because they "liked kids".

But I think it is the reality of being in the classroom that is the shocker. The truth is its TOUGH.

The realization that it is a tough job is what turned me into a believer in reform. I do not believe that teaching is easy so that anyone can do it well. It takes very special people with great communication skills. That makes me more disposed to the idea that not everyone should have tenure.

My mother got her degree in education, then realized she wasn't very good at keeping a classroom of kids in line so she found something else to do.

Teaching is too important to keep people who don't do it well.

It's just as important as a doctor, maybe even more so. Would you want to keep a doctor who wasn't up to it?

Tenure is for people who stay and are good at it, not for people who suck, like dear old mam.

are 3-5 probationary years before you get anything like job security (i won't call it 'tenure,' because these days, it isn't.)

>>> (i won't call it 'tenure,' because these days, it isn't.)>>>>

Or maybe "retention rights."

>>>>And when I hear journalists and commentators, many of them fresh out of the Ivy League, talking to teachers as if they were servants trying to steal the family silver, that’s what I hear. It’s an ugly tone from ugly people.>>>>>>.

And some columnists. Brooks and Kristoff come to mind.

Esp. Kristoff. He's turned know-nothingness into a fucking art form.

We're just in the way. No accusation too scurrilous. We're running wild through taxpayer money, like nude gazelles, etc. It's so mindlessly random, but relentless...

teaching as a profession in the United States any longer, given the virulent anti-intellectualism that underpins much of the current contempt for teachers and pedagogy.

It's really a shame, because I really do believe in the power of universal public education to produce broad social beneifts. But I can't blame anyone who, looking at the current climate, opts not to become a teacher.

I teach art, so my subject isn't (yet) given a battery of tests. I know that despite all the obstacles, I am giving students a way to look at the world that is slightly subversive. Lots of personal reasons, I guess. I'm an aging punk and an anti-capitalist. I've found my niche. It would be hard to encourage young people to enter this profession these days though.

and there I stood, 21 years old, in front of 32 eager first graders...terrified.

OK...Pledge of Alliegance...check. Call the roll. check. Sing some songs. Check. And I swear those kids knew I was new, but we all just fell in love and managed just fine.

Kind of like your first kid...what to do? But we all survived.

Not limited to teachers. Today I had a talk with a lawyer on a hot item over this site over a certain thing. Well, after talking about it, he said I was right in my understanding, he gave up on those arguments with most folks outside his profession, mostly we have cartoon level understanding of a multiplicity of issues, and we lack any and all intellectual curiosity

Suffice it to say I will take his advise and surrender the field on multiple intellectual pursuits. If it don't fit on a bumper sticker it ain't worth it.

Teachers and attitudes over teachers and book learning are just one of the many icebergs regarding this. Nor do I expect the country to develop that curiosity. The know nothing's of the 1740s, the first group in a long series of know nothing's, win.

I will add, I support education, but at this point within this environment, glad I don't have kids.

say good things about our teachers, even if they're less appreciative of teachers "somewhere else".

and it has infested both parties.

Education is "The Big Enchilada," after all.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002967097

A lot of ignorant people only see the taxes and the bad teachers. But the taxes going to teachers come right back into the local economy to pay the wages of other people. And the better teachers do, the better the future will be.