No Respect for Teachers in the USA. Why?

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There is no respect for the profession of teacher in the USA and there never has been. Since pre-colonial times, schools and schoolmasters, the art of teaching and the teachers who perform it, have been given short shrift by the inhabitants of these shores encapsulted by the common phrase "Those who cannot do, teach." Usually that statement is made by someone who can do neither, but that doesn't stop them from receiving some idiotic pleasure for having said it.

The USA seems to be of two minds (maybe more) about education and those who provide it. Education was and is deemed essential, but creating, educating and paying teachers was, and is, performed as some kind of chore, less desirable than making sure there is plenty of cement available to build roads and bridges. In the early 1900's a teacher had :
1) To keep the school room neat and clean, you must:
a) Sweep the floor at least once daily
b) Scrub the floor at least once a week with hot, soapy water
c) Clean the blackboards at least once a day
d) Start the fire at 7 AM so the room will be warm by 8 AM
In additon:
2) You will not marry during the term of your contract.
3) You are not to keep company with men.
4) You must be home between the hours of 8 PM and 6AM unless attending a school function.
5) You may not loiter downtown in ice cream stores
6) You may not travel beyond the city limits unless you have the permission of the chairman of the board.
7) You may not ride in a carriage or automobile with any man unless he is your father or brother.
8) You may not smoke cigarettes.
9) You may not dress in bright colors.
10) You may under no circumstances dye your hair.
11) You must wear at least two petticoats.
12) Your dresses must not be any shorter than two inches above the ankle.

Is it really any different today?

Yes, yes, we swoon at certain times over certain teachers, but respect in general? No.

Joe(why is that?)Nation

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@Joe Nation,

i don't know about respect for teachers,but after reading that i'd sure like to loiter in a downtown ice cream store

dj(make mine two scoops, in a waffle cone)jd

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on a serious note, my mother a retired teacher (over 2o years now) got out during one of the great purges of the old ways of thinking, she stifled children by having them use dictionaries, stifled them to the point that she had multiple kids each year get their stories included in county wide scholastic contests (she taught a grade 2/3 split mostly)

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@Joe Nation,

I will not be surprised that some state governors/congress will decide to eliminate the majority of on site teachers and use TV instructors instead. They will try to cover all instructions from a central source.

They are trying out the use of Math instruction by such an arrangement to learn if it will be easier for the students to learn. For example, they think students who are having difficulty to learn higher Math because teachers in classes tend to continue an instruction on the basis of majority class speed, leaving students who need more instruction time behind. Using the TV instructors, they think, will allow students to repeat instructions until they learn it fully without holding back the faster students.

Who knows what will be coming next.

BBB

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Miss Crabtree still looked pretty hot, despite the 2 petticoats.

Two petticoats?

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@chai2,

Rare footage of Gargamel and Miss Crabtree.

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@chai2,

2 petticoats kind of makes the lyrics to theme for Petticoat Junction, sound sort of dirty

"Here's Uncle Joe.He's a moving kind of slow
At the junction, Petticoat Junction"

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My husband taught for over 36 years - middle school, (grades 6 - 8) for god's sake.

I don't know how he did it. He loved it. He was a fantastic teacher, but complained about lack of administrative support. He lamented about how much time he had to spend on discipline. He was all for getting those kids who just didn't want to be in class out of the classroom - so he could concentrate on the other 25 or so who DID want to learn. Some years he had up to 35 kids in his class. Can you imagine ANY other setting where we group people just according to their age and try to teach them something?

He said the whole system fell apart when teacher's lost more rights and the kids gained extraordinary rights - could not touch a student's locker, touch them, retain them, send them home, etc. The whole "feel-good" educational movement - where everyone passes and everyone gets an A - also contributed.

I'd be interested in HOW the typical Chinese student's day goes. Our educational system is overloaded with tasks. We now have to feed kids, teach them about personal hygiene, sex, and offer psychological and speech services, drug counseling, and have police in the hallways.

Far cry from what it used to be . . .

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That whole idea of teachers not being able to require students to behave themselves springs completely from the lack of respect for teachers I referred to in my opening.
"What allow a mere teacher to direct my child?"
Teachers' salaries should start at $100,000.00 per year and there should be as rigorous a weeding out process for them as there is for lawyers.

Isn't it amazing that we don't use that system now?

Mothers should be heard murmuring prayers that their son or daughter should meet and marry a teacher.
Bios should read "She was a corporate vice president for several years while she attended the remaining classes needed to get her State Teaching Certificate."

Joe(we's a odd bunch here in the States)Nation

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@Joe Nation,

Joe Nation wrote:

That whole idea of teachers not being able to require students to behave themselves springs completely from the lack of respect for teachers I referred to in my opening.
"What allow a mere teacher to direct my child?"

I agree with this 1000% percent.

All this lip service of "It takes a village to raise a child" seems to fall apart when it involves someone else telling your own child what to do.

My next door neighbor was until recently a teacher (staying home to raise her child). She told me and my husband yesterday about the cut and paste story below...

AISD May Consider $10,000 Incentive for Teachers to Voluntarily Resign
Updated: Wednesday, 02 Mar 2011, 6:36 PM CST
Published : Wednesday, 02 Mar 2011, 3:11 PM CST

Austin, TX - A proposal to give teachers $10,000 incentive to voluntarily resign lasted only two minutes at Monday's night AISD school board meeting, but is now getting more attention.

Trustee Annette Lo-Voi supports the proposal which would give teachers the incentive to resign instead of being cut.

This proposal is just up for discussion right now and no action has been made, but AISD says they will discuss the matter at next week's school board meeting.

It's a similar proposal to one that has been tossed around by other school districts, including Dallas ISD. In Dallas, teachers lined up to get that incentive. Dallas ISD has $7 million to encourage teachers to quit.

Austin ISD trustees say they will next look at options to reduce employees who are subject to the layoffs, including the resignation incentive like Dallas ISD.

On Monday, AISD voted to declare the district in a financial emergency, clearing the way for the district to cut 1153 position.

There are 650 contract employees on that list and if this proposal is passed, AISD would likely offer those on the list the option to take that money and voluntarily leave first.

In her opinion, teachers would be lined up around the block to take the money and go.
Why?
Again, in her opinion, in large part because their hands are tied in what they can do with misbehavior.

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@PUNKEY,

I agree with you.

I recall that when Ronald Reagan became president, his policies for the real estate industry caused the rapid increase of the cost of housing. My family did fine with a lovely home for $15,000 in a good neighborhood. Within two years, my home value jumped first to $80,000, then 150,000, and on an on until it was worth four or five hundred thousand dollars. This meant in the majority of families, both parent's have to work to be able to buy a decent home and to provide for the family. This caused the lack of time for so many parents to have good participation in their child's education.

So many single parent women are caring for her children by herself and working all day with less time to participate in her children's education.

The internet distractions today compete with children's attention. Too much of their time is wasted on shallow activities and not useful for them to develop for their futures. Most of the role models they find on the internet are not good for positive behavior.

Teachers have to deal with all of these negative influences, which make their job harder, and lessens the enjoyment of their profession. So sad!

BBB

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@Joe Nation,

So right, lad.

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@BumbleBeeBoogie,

This thread reminds me part of why it's so tough to be a teacher.

Everyone thinks they know how to do your job better than you do.

My husband's a scientist and nobody presumes to tell him how to do his job.

But every adult was a kid once, most everyone has been to school, and many people are parents.

So teachers -- much like parents, but with a whole lot more people who are invested in their performance -- have to deal with a vast swath of people who are quite sure that they are doing their job wrong.

Often in wildly contradictory ways.

They're letting the kids goof off on the Internet too much. They're not letting the kids use the Internet enough, how are they going to learn to compete in the 21st century?

They're too cold and "professional," not warm and huggy enough. They're too touchy, do they want to get sued?

They're requiring kids to learn things that they're not ready to learn and it's demoralizing the kids and turning them off of learning. They're way too soft and "new-agey," these kids aren't learning anything.

And on, and on, and on, and on.

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@Joe Nation,

Blackboard Jungle

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I love youse guys.

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@littlek,

You have good taste!

BBB

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@Joe Nation,

I haven't explored the public schools here in Florida, Joe, but the sad part of being a GOOD teacher, is that you have people (including principals) who are in competition with you.

Here's the way it should be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbLs80cuots

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I just read a good discussion of this over at Balloon Juice. A comment:

Quote:

If you have a political movement that energizes some of the most ignorant members of society by telling them tall tales, I’m just going to guess that those ignoramuses don’t know enough to give a **** about the quality of teachers. And, if they’re anything like the snowbilly grifter they worship, they also resent the teachers in their past who tried to tell them they’re wrong.

Add into the mix a group of elites who will educate their children at private schools or “centers of excellence” in their walled burboclaves, and you’ve got a movement that’s more than happy to throw teachers under the bus. The majority of them can’t appreciate a good education, and the rest of them don’t expect the public school system to provide one to their children.

Half our country actively is taught that 'liberal' teachers lie to kids constantly, and won't let people believe in Jeebus the right way, and as the above piece says, they resent them for being smarter than they.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Joe Nation,

Joe Nation wrote:

That whole idea of teachers not being able to require students to behave themselves springs completely from the lack of respect for teachers I referred to in my opening.
"What allow a mere teacher to direct my child?"
Teachers' salaries should start at $100,000.00 per year and there should be as rigorous a weeding out process for them as there is for lawyers.

Isn't it amazing that we don't use that system now?

Mothers should be heard murmuring prayers that their son or daughter should meet and marry a teacher.
Bios should read "She was a corporate vice president for several years while she attended the remaining classes needed to get her State Teaching Certificate."

Joe(we's a odd bunch here in the States)Nation

I'll find a new sig line out of this, unless you balk at me. Well, hey, I'll/we'll go for it.

I'm aware things are complicated on who qualifies as a good teacher - I much understand that - but generally, the profession is centuries long dissed.
Said in memory of my hundred year old aunt Nan O'Donnell who taught in a one room school house on the san juan islands in the nineteen teens. (Well, she was younger then, born in 1900.)

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@Joe Nation,

In the 1955 movie teachers were paid $2/hour.

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No Respect for Teachers in the USA. Why?

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