[ekim68]

I can't think of many jobs with that kind of stress..

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...801344_pf.html

I've talked with many parents about how it's the school's fault that their children aren't
taught right....Good grief..

[Gabriel]

That is really a sad thing to read. I remember when being a teacher was practically revered, at least when and where I was growing up.

[grandpaw7]

I volunteer at some kindergarten and first grade classes. Yesterday I worked with a lovely young boy. His inability to remember and recognize words of the alphebet was heartbreaking. I worked hard with him. I could have stayed with him an hour, but I confess I was exhausted after about forty minutes. The teachers sometimes have several children like this in their class every day, day in and day out, along with quite bright children which makes the job much, much harder. The contrast with working with brighter kids is big indeed. With most of the kids, it can be disappointing to find the hour has gone by so that you'll have to forego having them enliven your own life.

And, unfortunately, chidren like this will one day be the victims of those clueless people whose simple solution is most always something like "get a job", or " If I could do it, you should be able to". I regret that people like MIchaelanglo or Einstein aren't around to say to these people whose hearts only bleed for themselves "look, if I could do it, you should be able to". That's a little beyond the subject but sometimes I get carried away. Particularly when it involves kids.

[treespirit]

I think it's sad too Gabriel, with the stuff teachers have to put up with these days on such low salaries it's no wonder they don't stay. It's also very sad to me that so many parents have abdicated their responsibilities as parents. So many children are raised in a day care where others give them their morals and values, then shipped off to school where the parents expect the teachers to continue from there. And then assign blame when the kids don't turn out the way they want. When my girls were in school I always volunteered there and I saw plenty of kids with parents never there. Or home with them after school. Fortunately there were also some willing to cut back on material things to be there for their kids, and also some grandparents at the school as well. Ekim brought up a really good article for discussion and to my mind the whole root of the problem of troubled kids starts with discipline and upbringing at home, instead of letting someone else do it and then blaming them for it. Of course there are some couples that actually have to have two incomes but far fewer than you'd think.

[Rep]

Yesterday my daughters trip to the national forensics tournament was canceled. She is one of nine students that qualified as alternates and competitors from our school of 1,200 students.

A new policy was instituted by the administrative staff about six week ago. It requires that some teachers must front the costs of transporting students to competitions such as this.

How selfish of the three teachers involved to cancel the trip. Can't they see that this policy assists the school district with cash flow? Driving two vans with students and volunteer parent chaperones eight hundred miles cannot be all that expensive. And within two months they will be reimbursed.

It's not like they cannot personally afford this trip. These teachers have had their salaries capped since the mid 1990's. No doubt their families have learned to make do. They probably could manage it somehow.

Although the competition is being held on Memorial Day weekend, they really will not have a lot of traffic to contend with. They were going to leave school at 8:00AM on Friday, compete over the weekend and drive back home Sunday night arriving around 1:00AM Monday morning.

But they cancelled the trip yesterday.

Can you imagine? They had a great opportunity to spend a Memorial Day weekend with nine high school students, driving eight hundred miles and paying the cost themselves.

Such selfishness on their part. As a taxpayer, I would like to see them appropriately punished. I think we should continue to cap their salaries. We should raise the standards and require more testing.

And of course, I will organize my community to blame them for everything. Our families are perfect up here in Wisconsin. There are no problems what-so-ever and it is the schools fault when children do not do well.

You would think that after all of the after school hours preparing my child for competition, the weekends of performance, and training the least these lazy bums could do is front the costs that is the taxpayers responsibilities.

[Mulderator]

There's a very easy solution to this problem. Get rid of the teacher's unions and give vouchers to parents for private schools.

See if Rep. goes along with that solution!

[Bush Lady]

Have you people ever thought of protesting. I mean really protest. Make a lot of noise. You have to really wake some people up here. I wouldn't let this slide. Your kids education is on the line.

[ekim68]

IMO, the first line of education is, the parents. (Maybe we should have tests before we
become parents.) The job of education is for all of us..
If anyone's volunteered for the school of their child more than 6 times in the year, raise your hands.
The job of being a teacher is really tough. (Mulder should stay in the hallways of a local
middle school for a half a day, and then complain about unions.) The fact is, we aren't
making a committment to education as we did in the mid-50's to the mid-60's. (And, that
was, to make the US the smartest nation in the world...)
And, it's not just the teachers. The school's staff is IMO the second line of defense. They
really get the heat of the parents....I've been in an office repairing something and more
than once someone comes in and complains, and, usually loudly...Go to a school and visit,
it's a hyper environment.

[Rep]

Originally Posted by ekim68

...
If anyone's volunteered for the school of their child more than 6 times in the year, raise your hands....

My hand is raised....

[linskyjack]

It all starts at home. A kid who is taught a love of learning from an early age can function in almost any educational enviornment as long as it is safe. As far as improving teaching goes----its very simple. End the tenure system and let teachers no that they have a job based on performance. Force principals to leave their offices and evaluate teachers constantly. Pay well, but demand something for what you pay for. These three things would do much more then the stupid voucher system (another right wing attempt to segregate schools).

[Gibble]

The sad thing here, is that with students like you described Grandpaw, we used to, at least in my area, have seperate classes for those students. And if they couldn't pass, they were held back until they learned it. Which was a GOOD THING, it's better it takes you a couple more years to finish school but when you graduate you KNOW what you were supposed to. Unlike today, where students aren't failed, seperate classes are frowned upon because you are singling kids out...and all in all, you're screwing them out of a future to save them a little embarassment today.

[Gibble]

Originally Posted by ekim68

If anyone's volunteered for the school of their child more than 6 times in the year, raise your hands.

Well I don't have a child, but I volunteered my time for approx the past 10 years to coach kids on my Saturday mornings, and Sundays when they qualified for tournaments...

Does that count?

[ChrisJones]

Originally Posted by Gibble

Well I don't have a child, but I volunteered my time for approx the past 10 years to coach kids on my Saturday mornings, and Sundays when they qualified for tournaments...

Does that count?

I think it does!

[ekim68]

I think it counts, too. Anytime you volunteer to help out is quality time for all.

[grandpaw7]

The solution is to hire as teachers only those who can play basketball well enough to be in the pros and then let them have two jobs, one to teach the future and the other to entertain the present. While they will be poorly paid to teach the future, the exorbitant pay they will get for entertaining the present will make up for that. As with everything else, the only way to know what the teachers face is to experience what they face personal and up close, by volunteering as has been suggested. Too many people prefer to judge from afar, that being a much more comfortable way to judge which frees the critic up from having to know who he is criticizing or what the situation is that he is criticizing. It frees the critic up to criticize on the basis of ideology rather than fact.