The teaching profession has been under attack like never before. It is tough being a teacher these days. Apart from doing more & more with less, they are accused of being "greedy" and what not.And blamed for things beyond their control, like our our crappy economy.
Follow me below fold for the best ever gift a teacher could receive. A heartfelt thank-you letter oozing oodles of charm from a 4th grader.
http://www.nydailynews.com/...
"Dear Mrs. Ofsie,
"Thank you for making first grade such a wonderful and pleasant year. Out of all my teachers at PS 272, you taught me the most. The knowledge you gave me, I will treasure itforever. You taught me patience, respect and being calm.
"You really made a HUGE impact on my life. You showed me what it means to be a friend and be kind to others. You really helped me control my anger, and I'm proud of that ... No one understood me as much as you did.
"You taught me what respect means and how to respect people. You also taught me how to respect myself. Respect means more than being nice to people. It means to do what's right when nobody's looking. Respect means to treat people the way I would want to be treated.
"Being calm is when people need to chill out. I've needed to do that sometimes. And believe it or not, it's been turning out pretty good.
"And because of you, Mrs. Ofsie, over the years, my math has been phenomenal. I passed my first math state test. Math was still a fun subject before first grade. I just learned the real meaning of math in first grade. Math is my way of talking to numbers.
"You always spend your free time playing chess with me. Even on the busiest nights and days we spend our time playing chess. Did you know that back in medieval times warriors actually played chess and checkers because they believed that it would make them better at wars? I say that's pretty interesting. I play chess just to have fun and to be with close friends.
"You taught me a lot, Mrs. Ofsie. You taught me that knowledge is priceless. Thank you for making first grade thebest year in my educational career.
I don't know about you , but to me it seemed like the education of a whole child , not just test prep. Even though the child doesn't say so, I see that the child sees the teacher as more than a teacher - a friend, philosopher and guide. Contrast this with the education deform elites who have a highly distorted view of teaching. And they place the onus of success of the students on the teachers. Like teachers are some mythical characters out to slay poverty and all the miseries of our society.
Take Bill Gates, the self-anointed Education Czar, who compares teaching to lawn mowing :
"Is there any other part of of the economy where someone says, 'Hey, how long have you been mowing lawns? ... I want to pay you more for that reason alone."
(Check this out on the myth of Bill Gates as a "business genius" :
http://lbo-news.com/...)
Or how about the diva of education reform and media darling Michelle Rhee who started a PAC with an Orwellian name studentsfirst.org? You see, the DC public school parents who voted her boss out mainly because of her slash & burn approach don't put their children first.Oh my, here is a classic example of how Rhee put her students first as a Teach for Awhile (TFA) teacher - by taping their mouths.
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/...
Or Obama/Duncan, who cheered the firing of all the teachers at Central Falls high school. Obama did it in style - while addressing .... US Chamber of Commerce , of all the places. See this for Obama's contradiction on the role of teachers :
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/....
How much I would love to be a fly when he attends the parent teacher meeting at Sidwell's.
And Duncan who endorsed the shaming of teachers with the weirdly named, highly error-ridden (error rate could be as high as 30%) "value-added assessment". (Seems Duncan will get some value-added assessment from the House Ed committee chair John Kline reg Race to the Bottom fund distributions).
In short, what these elites are doing is to demonize teachers and demoralizing them. There are already signs of this and the rot is setting in :
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/...
To paraphrase Diane Ravitch, you can't win a war by firing your troops.
Which is what the so-called education deformers are doing. And they are set to pile on more misery for the teachers. Scrooges.
http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/...
Now, if only they will learn from the 4th grader and show some gratitude and acknowledge the tough job the teachers are doing. I can dream.
(P.S : Just some comic relief :
How will public schools be if run by Bill Gates?
They will often run slowly and need to be re-started multiple times. And kids can steal other kid's work and submit them as their own.
Share your own in the comments below).