I usually confine my diatribes to punctuational and grammatical evildoing. There's less room for argument there and I know I'm right (except when I'm wrong). But I have been impelled to set aside this limitation and wade into the current news. Well, earlier-this-week's news, when President Obama made some remarks on educational policy.
"It is time to start rewarding good teachers and stop making excuses for bad ones," he told the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. http://www.google.com/...
Now I think the mighty O man is doing a great job, but these words caused a nasty frisson to run through every teacher and every teachers' union in the country. Not being a teacher, thank goddess, I don't technically have a dog in this fight, but it did bring up something that's been bugging me for years.
I don't doubt that there are bad teachers. There are bad economists, bad politicians, bad police officers, bad public defenders, bad pundits, bad judges, bad prison guards, bad executives, bad waiters, bad movie stars, bad doctors, bad soldiers, bad human resource professionals. There are bad presidents, bad Senators, and bad Supreme Court justices. BUT what professionals are most consistently pictured as the cause of a social problem because they're BAD at their jobs??? If you don't think it's teachers, just go Google "teacher accountability" or "bad teachers." You'll come away with the idea that the average teacher looks like this:
Only more slothful. That's the spirit of education dead under Kali's feet, by the way.
When crime goes up, are there calls that we get rid of the bad cops (who have the equivalent of tenure, BTW)? When there's an epidemic, do we talk right away about holding public health officials accountable? When there's a prison riot, do we blame the prison guards first? We might look at the role all these people play in the general social problem, but usually we discuss the problem with the recognition that there's more than one causative factor. With education, though, it's always bad teachers first and bad teachers last.
I don't know if it's coincidence that teachers (at the grammar and high school level) are primarily seen as being female. And unlike nurses, they're seen as flying solo, rather than under the immediate supervision of a MAN/doctor (I know that's an inaccurate perception of nurses, but I think it's the common one). But I harbor dark suspicions that this is a factor.
From reading about these BAD teachers, you'd think that there's an infinite number of young people out there who contemplate careers as pundits, politicians, and corporate executives, but reject them all, thinking, "Hell, no! I don't want to be dedicated and hard working! I want to loaf around making one third what most people with my education make, spend more time on my feet than a waitress, wallow in those great fringe benefits where I get to clean my own classroom, buy my own supplies for my classroom -- or rather, the classrooms I share with three other teachers -- work at night grading papers and preparing lesson plans, and work with parents! school boards! principals! Because I'm bad and uncaring and lazy!"
Hey, I've got a novel idea. Let's throw money at the problem for a while! We're printing a whole bunch of it anyway! (I think this is Obama's secret plan, but no president since LBJ has been able to admit such a concept.) Let's pay teachers the real value of their work, reduce class size below that of a regiment per room, get some decent computers in there, buy NEW books, and provide adequate janitorial services and supplies.
Then, if the teachers are still lolling around drinking aperitifs on the job, THEN we can talk about teacher accountability.