There were two quotes in the article that I think hit the nail on the head. The first: "Sometimes on purpose and sometimes by accident, teachers' unions have a long history of working against children in the name of job security for adults." This week I went sat in on the United Teachers of Richmond union rep meeting to see who we would endorse for school board, city council, and mayor of Richmond. I felt dirty being there, and the funny thing is that there are so many similarities between what went on there and typical position elections back at the fraternity. There was one candidate whose two minute speech was very well thought out, including his experience, his thoughts on what he advocates for in the classroom, in schools, and in education policy in general, but apparently he forgot to include all the buzz words that earn the support of the union masses. Other candidates gave about one minute 45 second speeches about how teaching is a large part of their family - listing off the family members who are teachers - and then used the last 15 seconds to spout something about fighting for our health benefits or yelling into the microphone that they would not vote to hire scabs, which of course got the entire group snapping in support. In my mind, "we" the union did not endorse the most qualified individuals. It was my sad realization that all elections are like this, and that there are stupid people in this world and there is nothing you can do about it except complain on your blog.
The second quote that got me thinking was: "We hire lots of our lowest performers to teach, and then we scream when our kids don't excel." A year and a half ago I was in San Francisco taking a teacher exam for teaching secondary math, and a few minutes before we were told to begin, I initiated some small talk with the woman in front of me, who openly shared the fact that this was her 14th time taking the test. I often wonder where she is today - if a teacher - and wonder whether or not she lets her students retake a test 14 times. I guess there is a fine line between determination and stupidity. And even in my credential class, there were a whole bunch of people who freely admitted that they had bounced between other professions for a while and didn't know what to do, so they decided to teach. It immediately reminded me of the sad joke that "those who can't do, teach." But seriously it is those people who at the first sign of misbehavior in their class will immediately make bad relationships with students and blame the student for making their job hard. Teaching should be a profession that is prestigious in that you know it will be hard, and your success is measured in your anticipation of those difficulties and how you handle them. I guarantee that no kid comes to class on the first day of school with the predisposition to make their teacher's life hell. Anything that happens that appears that way is likely the result of some teacher action that makes the student feel threatened.
I am particularly passionate about this because my school offers the ultimate highs and the ultimate lows in teachers. Fortunately, the lows only come from a few staff members and mainly happen in the form of substitute teachers. I had one of my best students come in on Friday and explain to me her run-in with her substitute PE teacher that day, who initiated an argument with students after accusing them of not saying "here" during roll call. Seems like a dumb reason to say the words f*** you to a student, but there is no way this student was lying to me, and I've heard of stuff like this happening before. I swear some people should be banned from interacting with kids.
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