- All eyes on me, please!
One of my far-away teacher friends wrote me recently: I have to spend the first 3 or 4 hours in a meeting (progress monitoring – the latest and greatest time waster.) Ah! How well I remember!
When I was teaching I chafed at all those unnecessary meetings that took my time and energy and were scheduled to make someone else look like they were doing their job. I always thought of them as diversionary tactics designed to keep all of us from noticing what the real problems were. Education is full of those situations. So is our government.
In fact, if I were a fulltime paranoid instead of a sometime one, I’d say that a great deal of our lives is spent in being (not very) subtly directed to look in the wrong direction. Take this past week or ten days. Our focus has been on Egypt and the troubles there. There are references to the millions (or is it billions?) that we send in that direction to shore up their political regime(s). And, there are some mentions in the news about Egypt being “key” to the future of the Middle East. “Look over there.”
What is not often mentioned is that until we develop an alternative to fossil fuels and our dependence upon oil, we will continue to be focused on the Middle East. “Look over there.” Nor are we given any comparative figures about how investment in the one (Egypt – or Afghanistan or Iraq or…) compares with our investment in the other (alternative energy sources or transportation methods or…). “Look over there.”
Our public schools keep kids and teachers busy with new testing programs and new curricula designed to help kids pass those tests. And while the test developers rake in the money, we focus on the test results. “Look over there.” Little mention is made about our entire system of education being broken or that we need to concentrate on finding a new and better way to prepare our young people for the world of today. Instead, we hire security guards for our high schools and develop national standards for teachers. “Look over there.”
Or maybe, in addition to being out-of-step, I’m just not focussing properly…
I was actually told at the beginning of the school year (because our high-stakes test scores were disappointing last year) to teach only math, reading, and writing to my 3rd graders. If there was time, science. The kids are pulled out twice a week for a total of 60 minutes of PE and 60 minutes of music and 40 minutes of library. Where does that leave social studies–which includes history, geography, civics, and economics and which, in my opinion, is vital for turning out responsible, knowledgeable citizens capable of recognizing the red herrings Sydney mentions? Social studies is the red-headed stepchild these days in the elementary school. I say, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”
Hear, hear, Sydney! First of all, Frank refers to these long meetings at school as “Tearcher Torcher.” And you are right, we give Egypt billions not to attack Israel and in turn give them billions not to use their nuclear arsenal. All of this to keep feeding our addiction to oil. Don’t even get me started on how outfits like FOX fuel the fire of fear. Recently my mother became convinced that Dave ought to put a 50 gallon drum of gasoline in our garage in case Egypt closed the Suez Canal. It seems that on the prune ranch during the Great Depression my grandfather kept such a barrel of oil. I pointed out that the neighbors and Pierce County might take a dim view of keeping so much gasoline in a residential neighborhood with the potential of blowing it to Kingdom Come. She was as deflated as when I told her that I’d be breaking more than one law if I just threw her body in the car and drove it to Portland to Oregon Health Sciences for donation, rather like stuff going to Goodwill, but I digress.
Peninsula School District’s bond failed this week. Sports ought to go away or be on a pay-to-play basis. If the voters are going to defeat education they ought to feel it. Two of the keys to a lot of our difficulties is getting off fossil fuel as well as valuing our teachers (which includes renumeration) in the same way we value doctors or any other professional. Making teaching as attractive as the computer industry will stock the classroom with future teachers who will inspire students to come up with innovations that take the focus off the Middle East.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA… Did Frank actually call them “Torcher” or “Torture” ??? LOL !!!
I’m sorry for my ignorance, I am illuminated by the “torcher” part, I’m not familiar with tearcher though… my assumption is that it is painful to the point of tears?
Could someone enlighten me?
My most recent educational experience was in Canada and obviously it has lost something crossing the border.