Bill Mahar – New Rule Children and Teachers
Teachers’ newest online worry: cyberbaiting
As if teaching in today’s environment is not hard enough! It seems that any technology humans come up with, someone finds a way to pervert it. I do know that the school system where my significant other teaches has a policy prohibiting teachers from interacting with students on social sites. Apparently, it is for some very good reasons.
Below is a link to an article about cyberbaiting (why does that sound so nasty) at eSchool News
Guardians of the Future
The saying is, “Children are our future.” The meaning is obvious. The children are the next generation that will carry on the human species. Our hope as parents and as a specie is that the next generation will better, have it better, increase the humanities knowledge , among many other things.
Children do not grow to functioning positive members of a society without some guidance. Parents provide (hopefully) a large part of this guidance. Other significant guiding forces in young lives are teachers. Without teachers, formal and informal, where would any of us be as people? I can just about guarantee that everyone reading this can relate a story about someone who has taught them something or modeled behavior. Frequently the impact of this is carried with the person the rest of their life.
We seem to be in a period of vilifying teachers within our education system. We seem intent in denying them retirement, fair pay and decent working conditions. We are asking them to do more and more with less and less. We expect results this year that are stellar and next year are stellar plus. Many teaching jobs have turned from teaching to paper work and preparing for standardize tests. The burn out rate is high, and we seem to prefer it that way as it keeps young people coming into the system at the bottom of the pay scale. Add to that the not so subtle process of privatizing education in this country. At one level I am clueless why anyone would want to work in this mess. But I am very glad there are, and that many of those feel called and dedicated to guiding the next generation.
Below is a link to an article praising those who teach. In the article was a wonderful little Rudyard Kipling snippet.
“No printed word, nor spoken plea can teach young minds what they should be.
Not all the books on all the shelves – but what the teachers are themselves. ”
Teaching: The Greatest Responsibility and Opportunity
Korporations Have Hijacked Our Schools
Here is a link to an article that details how our schools are being taken over by korporations for purpose of creating commodity style workers. It sounds like a conspiratorial type idea, but… I don’t know if we have a bunch of corporate types in a back room planning this, but the effect is the same. And I believe real. Korporations want compliant workers. Besides lower wages, I think part of the rush to H1-B workers and off-shoring was to get a more compliant workforce. My experience, having worked with a multitude of H1-Bs, is that they do not buck the system and accept whatever is dealt out. Korporations 1, workers 0.
The link: Our Public Schools Are Churning Out Drones for the Corporate State
For whatever reason there seems to be a head long rush to divide us into a classed society. A rush to divide us into a society of the educated and the poorly educated. Education does not seem to be valued any more for the sake of knowledge, but only for what it can do for you career-wise. Most of the Meta values I am aware of are not derived from the korporate workplace.
This two class society scares me in another way. For a democracy to really work well, it is better to have an educated population. To have a population that is not influenced by every Glenn Beck that comes along. A population devoted to the NFL and reality shows, is not going worry too much about state of the nation until it is too late.
Most of my adult life I have worked for large korporations that include several Fortune 500 companies. While I do not think I am exceptional or different, I have always chafed in these places. There is something about being stuck in a little gray cube 8 hours a day that is not conducive to the soul’s health. The folks that run these companies know that. So the question becomes how do we keep the work force under control, and with the illusion that this is what life is all about? They obviously think the answer is to hijack the educational system. With control of the education system the values and skills that benefit the korporations can be instilled early and often. They are well on the way to doing that. Continue reading “Korporations Have Hijacked Our Schools”
Have You Hugged A Teacher Lately?
For a nation concerned with being competitive with the rest of the world we are doing all we can do to gut that competitiveness by gutting education. We refuse to tax those who could afford it, instead we want to gut, gut, and gut a little more in all pursuit of of some idealogical fantansy.
Having dated a school teacher for the last 3 years, I am not sure why anyone stays in the professional. I understand the burn out rate early in the career is high. I’m sure folks get into teaching for many reasons, and I know for many that reason is a need for a socially significant profession. We should reward folks for these occupation.
From what I hear teaching has turned into a bureaucratic nightmare. Plus teaching has become an exercise in teaching to standardized tests.
Below is a link to an excellent article and retro video about this issue.
Have You Hugged A Teacher Lately?
If you do a Google search on Teacher Burnout, I came up with close to 200,000 hits.
A couple of interesting quotes from the article:
“Nearly half of all teachers quit during their first five years, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, but the numbers alone don’t convey the full severity of the problem.”
“It is often the best qualified teachers who leave first because they have the easiest time finding employment in other fields.”
Yet there is a group of politicians (and citizens) trying to make them the scapegoat for our financial problems. Shame on them.