CNN, the New York Times, and every other media outlet that hyped the dangers of in-person learning well into 2021 SHOULD APOLOGIZE TO EVERY CHILD IN THE UNITED STATES.
Monopoly schools run by a government monopoly are problems universally. True, portable, school choice vouchers will disempower these monopolists. Everyone against them has the goal of money and power for the unions and hence the democrat party.
Alex shouldn't be surprised that this happened, but within his bubble he probably wasn't exposed to the truth.
It helps to bring attention to their proported terror of death. If they are that 'sensitive' maybe they don't need to be teaching children. We need proactive reactions, not mindless fear. That gives the children, already aware of their smallness and ignorance only bad examples of how to "cope". That is worse than no teaching at all.
It was a net loss, the "teaching" that went on during the pandemic. And the teachers, and the unions are to blame for this. They thought FIRST of themselves, using the worst 'reason' of all, their self centeredness. We need children to strive to find solutions, and to have appropriate positive role models. The "teachers" need help themselves, if they really thought that they were in danger. They were TERRIBLE role models, as well as TERRIBLE "teachers"
Not only that but the perceived threat was for most people a sore throat and a cough. The dangers of Covid were vastly overblown and used strictly to manage and control the citizeds.
Disagree. You had to do a great deal of individual research to get to the truth, and even if you believed HCQ and IVM were effective treatments, it was damned near impossible to get them.
And you wonder why kids are sitting ducks for psychopaths. These chicken shit teachers would rather lock themselves in a closet than confront one of these lunatics and try to stop him. Unarmed or not, 1 guy with a gun couldn’t take out all 20 people if they charged at him.
My daughter is a Pre-K director and has NEVER believed in any of this. She has seen the devastation firsthand because of the lockdowns and masks. She runs a site for a federal Pre-K program for low income students so it goes without saying that most of them don't have the support at home needed to keep their skills age appropriate. They're so far behind and now Kindergarten teachers are getting these kids. The ripple effect is going to be horrendous in a couple of years.
I think he [edit: Alex - just in case the "he" wasn't clear!] is just unaware of the true extent of the damage that unions do to students and schools. Now he is finally clueing in.
I think MANY people were just totally unaware of just had BAD the "teaching" is. Zoom "teaching" and the parents discovering what was really going on needed to be discovered first, before they make future decisions regarding their childrens "education".
BTW, indoctrination ISN'T education. "Teachers" jobs is not to teach children WHAT TO THINK, they need to teach children HOW to think.
I do not consider HOW to think as a valid goal either. We don't teach naturally occurring actions like how to breath, how to chew. People will naturally figure out how to think. The teachers' job is to teach skills (reading, grammar, writing, math) and facts (science, history, geography, civics) to support their ability to think as it develops.
There have been a lot of very bright people who we can learn from. The classics, Shakespeare and many many others. A classical education-you can do far worse. Technical subjects can be taught later.
Not minimizing civics, history, geography and math either. Our "teaching" today is obvious in it's inadequacy. Many children 'graduating' from HS, cannot effectively read or write. It's a fraud on a VAST scale. Our society is competing with nations that are SERIOUS about education. We live in a temporary island, that the free market, and good fortune has given us. The rest of the world, much of it, is far worse off. We have been too comfortable for too long. People in these situations often are harshly woken up
As a teacher, I would like to say that zoom teaching in no way represents teaching in the classroom. Just in self defense. I had to do it, was rated as the best by my principal because my kids engaged and I kept a pace and actually covered some material in my 40 minutes of allowed time. BUT I sucked at it. I KNEW I sucked at it. I couldn't wait for in person.
Zooming from home was horrendous. I had people sitting on on my Zooms yelling at me for not calling on their child every time a hand was raised. It was insane.
I had parents and students calling my home phone from 7am to 9 at night. No joke. I was spending hours and hours creating PowerPoints the kids learned nothing but doing or didn't do at all. I spent hours checking five different platforms to see who was logging in and trying to contact kids who weren't. Fruitlessly.
I hated it. Most teachers I know hated it. Our unions fought us cing back without asking any of us what we wanted. I know many of us wrote letters complaining. It was insane.
I certainly don’t agree with some things Alex says,but this thread illustrates why Alex sometimes is exasperated with those who post here.Alex is not an idiot.But if you couldn’t appreciate that when he says,”you’ll never guess what happened” he was utilizing sarcasm and irony,then you really need to on a “read/don’t comment” status for this substack.Otherwise you’re just going to be embarrassing yourself again and again…
He is not being sarcastic. I have a friend who is a professor who refuses to teach students in person because he thinks their "presence" will kill him. Really.
"Sweden kept it's schools open and you'll never guess what happened next. There was no learning loss."------ I think Alex expected that there would be no learning loss with schools open. I don't think he was surprised.
A friend of mine from college referred to herself and fellow teachers as sacrificial lambs when the government dared talk about reopening schools. They really have lost all sense of proportion.
Meanwhile they shop at stores that have way more people in them that they know nothing about as opposed to their controlled environment classroom with the same group of children in them every day. Some have been frightened by the hyperbole others are just following Randi Whinegargler et al to squeeze taxpayers for more money but are unwilling to budge on merit pay for teachers based on student educational outcomes.
Never had a sense of proportion to have lost. The "professionals" in the education industry are measurably the stupidest on earth. Journalists are a very close second.
Amazing what this has done to individual political position. I once thought vouchers were an attempt to re-segregate schools. I was for M4All. Teachers Unions have destroyed the first and CMS mandates on hospitals prohibiting effective treatments, pushing homicide with ventilators and firing unvaxxed workers have me questioning M4All.
Yeah, vouchers are a way to ensure competition and end monopoly. They are particularly important for the poor of all skin colors who have no choice and can't afford Sidwell Friends in DC.
There will be no apology. America needs to wake up to the scam and quit saying how wonderful the teachers are and how much they care. They are overpaid part time employees! They were failing before the lockdowns. They are the epitome of the sheep!! In Wa our kids can’t do math, read or write so their brilliant idea is to throw out tests that put their failure on display in the name of….yep, racism!! I know there are a few good ones left but they are not the norm!!
It is ridiculous. I am also tired of hearing about how they are heroes. Even if teaching was heroic in some way, they behaved like cowards during Covid, while still demanding they be recognized as heroes.
I don't know, but I went back to in person learning in October of 2020. Way before any office workers I know. Told it was safer in schools even though just like all illnesses when schools opened, illness rates skyrocketed.
I'm not afraid of COVID, but the media scared most of my coworkers to death. They were legit terrified. As were millions who stayed at home while we went in to babysit kids they wanted out of the house. So stop with picking on all teachers.
Not one teacher in my district campaigned to stop schools from opening. Not one. Yet we were the first district to open.
Good for your district for opening first. But millions of other people never stayed home from work and millions were forced to stay home when they couldn’t afford it. Not all teachers behave badly, but there are many who do and they are loud and obnoxious and parents are reasonably concerned. Instead of addressing our concerns, we get extreme defensiveness from you and insulted. Comments from teachers are insulting. You act like you work harder than everyone else and that you are above criticism and that parents are horrible for being angry and concerned about the current state of education. It is a mess. Maybe we can start taking about those issues and working together to make it better for everyone, otherwise people are going to continue to take their kids out of public education. As soon as I can convince my husband, I am taking my kids out. I don’t feel like my voice as a parent is being heard. I am not alone in that. It may not be the fault of all teachers, but irregardless of whose fault it is, I’m sick of public education and being lectured by teachers about how they work harder and are better than everyone else. I appreciate you have a tough job, so do I and lots of other people. At the end of the day, I want my kids to learn and be able to thrive in school without worrying about their safety. Currently public education is failing and it is getting worse and not better.
Change jobs with teacher for just a week. And now they’re suppose to defend their students to the death if a gunman enters the class. On pay that’s 2/3 of a nurse. It’s not the teachers who have failed the students, it’s parents who have failed their kids and society expects teachers to make up for bad parenting. A teacher can’t do miracles and that’s what’s expected of them now. They’re dealing with damaged BRAINS, that can’t be fixed. There is so much drug and alcohol damage in kids (from the mother in utero) plus disintegrating home life, hunger, poverty, jailed parents, divorce, neglect, physical and sexual abuse, these kids are in the same classroom as the normal kids but so much energy goes into dealing with these behaviors the normal kids are deeply affected. God forbid if a teacher can’t teach a damaged brain to recognize letters or numbers, their fault! On $20/hr or less!
First, I was a teacher and mentored during a time when teachers did care. I am still working closely to the system. Let me give you a fact: a middle school art teacher who teaches 5 classes a day and is out of the building before 3 makes over a hundred thousand for part time work. That does not include the over $800 per month for their benefits.
We understand kids are a mess but they are NOT teaching skills. 72% of students in Wa cannot pass a basic math test. When I asked the math department head at the high school about it the reply was “ test scores are the LEAST of my concerns”. I appreciate you wanting to give them the benefit but schools are a mess because the bad teachers are now in admin. There is no consequences for behavior that is disruptive to the learning of others. School choice will only be the beginning of the change parents and their kids deserve.
@BD- you are correct. Teachers get no support from admins anymore. Admins are too worried about what people will think of them instead of the welfare of the child.
Don’t play word games, the pay is the same and you know it. The “we only get payed for 10 months” is a BS narrative. Your benefit dollars are year round and if you add up all the time off including sick leave and personal days, you are much closer to 16 weeks off every year. Be honest, you are HUGELY paid and the job is just not that difficult. If kids were held accountable for behavior your job is a breeze. Many teachers cannot pass the basic tests, I know because my friend couldn’t pass the 3rd grade national standard test. Again, I am not downplaying the toxic environment but teachers are a part of the problem. Students should not know who you vote for, sleep with or much about your personal life, they should know how to read, write and do math. We have all failed these kids with our silence!
No but I work 60 hours a week with no summer vacation, winter vacation, spring break, fall break, work weekends once a month, and often holiday's are worked as well. When teachers do that I'll respect them. Until then they are lazy whiners.
Hi Ron. I understand that the system is in great need of an overhaul, but you are really misinformed. I am a college instructor, and I recently went back to the high school level and taught English for two years. Please understand that we are not off at 3:00. I spent all of my evenings and weekends grading essays and planning. There was maybe an hour a day to grade and plan while I was at school. We are also not paid in the summer. We have the option to take a 10 month salary (the school year) and stretch it into 12 months. Many teachers do not have any income during the summer and get jobs in order to make ends meet. I no longer teach at that level because it was exhausting and draining. Teachers aren't just teaching curriculum; they are dealing with a lot things they should not have to deal with. I think it's really important to know the facts before you make statements like the ones you've made. You have no idea what you are talking about.
Boo hoo. You understand we all work when we get home nowadays right? And are you really complaining that there's "a lot of things you should not have to deal with"? Welcome to the real world - we all deal with BS at work that we didn't sign up for. Also complaining that you aren't getting paid for not working - the entitlement is palpable. Yeah it sounds "so exhausting and draining". You wouldn't last 1 month in most competitive work environments.
I have worked in private sector til I was forty. Most on private sector do not work sixty hours a week either and whine if they do.
Teaching is exhausting. Compared to office work. No joke. And now, I can't do much as put my hand in a child's hand to pull them along if they don't want to be in line with class. It's considered abusive.
If you give me rules that are insane (which arise from parental complaints of abuse btw), then yes, I'm exhausted. And that is one example. I am not to raise my voice or ever be angry with a child either.
Yet I'm sent children who will not listen and who by fourth grade tell me to F off.
@Ron- STTTAHHHPPPPP The REAL teachers work year 'round by lesson planning. continuing education (mandatory), always on the lookout for something new and interesting. Some are lazy like you mentioned but most are not. My daughter is a 12 month teacher because she's also a director of a Head Start.
Do you make what teachers make? Getting 25 children to listen to lessons and actually learn something, many of them with emotional problems, learning problems (from mothers who took drugs or alcohol in pregnancy), behavioral issues which can become violent, while making less than $20/hr, nothing compares, nothing. Spare me the screeching violins of your job.
Of course the job has its challenges. All jobs do. You also signed up to do the job and then complain constantly. Education has become increasingly political and parents are tired of it. Anyone who has a job caring for people has to deal with challenging situations. Any criticism of teachers or the education system is met with extreme defensiveness. Very few in education will admit there some deep problems and understand why parents are reasonably upset. Teachers often make it all about themselves the defend the education system while children are the ones being negatively affected. Education isn’t the only institution where this happening either. I am a nurse and I see many of the same problems in healthcare as well. Patients can be difficult with many difficult emotional problems and they can be and have been violent. They are adults that have injured my co-workers on the job. We took care of thousands of covid patients on my unit. We didn’t shut down for any period of time. It was very challenging and still is. But, we are doing the job we signed up for. And we did sign up for it. There will always be unexpected challenges any job and some problems will always be there. There will always be terrible parents who do terrible things to their children, but there are also great parents who take great care of the their children. There will always be patients who have awful pasts and do terrible things that make my job hard. There are also many wonderful people I have had the opportunity to meet and take care of. None of that will ever change.
Nope. . teachers were attacked I this thread and are telling the facts of how hard the profession has become. That isn't complaining. You called us lazy whiners. We are allowed to defend.
"many of them with emotional problems, learning problems (from mothers who took drugs or alcohol in pregnancy), behavioral issues which can become violent, while making less than $20/hr"
Most folks go to work, do their thankless jobs and live their lives. I’m quite sick of hearing kids conveying the grievances of their teachers. It tells me that teachers are using classroom time, which should be used to teach things like math and reading, to air their various grievances to their students. Insanity. Anyone else allowed to complain to customers about salary and work hours? I mean without getting fired.
I agree that no teacher ever should tell kids they have problems. Rarely, rarely I have heard teachers do this. But if it happens regularly at your school, complain. Get others to complain. It will stop
We no longer can discipline students due to parent complaints, so...
Yes, I regularly check it out. Before that, once upon a time when I was single, I went on quite a few dates with teachers. (in the San Francisco Bay Area) I usually found my self thinking after the date: "wow, she has problems, no wonder she is still single" and not going on a second date. My now wife got her teaching credential after being in the corporate world for a while. After spending maybe 3 months substitute teaching in a public school, she said: This is not for me. There was a ton of gossip and bullying between the teachers. She said it felt like a bunch of emotionally stunted people all acting like they were reliving Jr. High. She then went back into the corporate world where she remains today.
but our country ranks 23rd (arguably as poor as 42nd) in the world in terms of students taking international standardized tests
teachers these days are more interested teaching anal sex and calling all the white kids racist & frankly that requires very little skill. although, i guess if there was an international test for that, then we'd be #1
Wow that sounds so hard! 25 people! I cannot imagine that while I sit here responsible for managing over 350 people. If they are making $20/hr they are overpaid.
They are basically children so yes. This is what's so ridiculous about the teaching community. They actually think their job is uniquely difficult. It isn't and the vast majority of them are just on the government dole because they are incompetent. I wouldn't trust 90% of my kids teachers to manage a Wendy's.
I'm s teacher and take offense. If it's so easy, you should do it for us for half the pay. I agree teachers in WA shouldn't complain at all about pay. But it is a demanding, exhausting job. I never am done by three and come in on weekends because by 5 pm I'm exhausted from running on my feet all day. Maybe if I were twenty again, it would be an easy job, but it is my profession and I can't just quit for something else.
Wow. Rude. As a teacher, I am so offended. So offended. You say these things as if teachers aren't human beings. It is rude and cruel and unfair. Teaching is a hard profession. Due to crazy expectations from both admin and parents. We aren't allowed to teach. You get fired if you discipline kids even by taking away recess. No joke. Recess is now sacrosanct.
You cannot hug children, you cannot touch shoulders to redirect. In my district that is considered holding them punitively.
I have to use a crappy curriculum with fidelity that ensures kids don't learn. I have to sneak in phonics. It's not enough.
If teaching is so easy and well paid, you do it. Stop complaining and get in here and show us all how easy it is.
Do we really think the evil Randy Weingarten would ever apologize? As head of the teachers' union she mimicked Mighty Mouse Fauci and seized the power and ran with it. I actually believe a small minority of teachers really care about the kids. They care about their summers off; holidays and the chance to exercise their activist muscles. Oh, and of course, their pensions.
Public Schools have failed miserably in teaching our kids so now they want to sexualize our kids starting in K ! Teachers are such big zeroes now, right? Not Heroes.
The Plandemic was an irresistible temptation for the Bolsheviks that own the teachers unions to advance their Marxist agenda. Fortunately it led to overreach and the curtain was pulled back long enough for us to see that there was some serious fuckery going on behind our backs.
I wish you were correct. But the unions still control everything as does the National School Board Association and all the idiotic teacher colleges. I know. I'm a teacher. As we speak, the schools are sneaking whole language back in to schools nationwide by adopting American Reading Company. Kindergarten thru most of first, it ignores phonics. And children are never taught to sound out. Never.
How this is happening after all research shows this is awful for kids, I don't know. But there you have it. Wake up parents. Your children are not only being indoctrinated but being taught to be functionally illiterate.
My point is that we got a glimpse of the serious problems which has created a growing backlash to begin taking on the multitude of problems within our public schools. The struggle has begun in earnest and it is real.
They don’t teach basic economics or civics because its harder to demogogue and pander to educated voters. They waste time teaching divisive social topics that takes away from basic building block studies like math, science, language arts, reading, and English composition aka “writing”. Meanwhile our students are ranked in the mediocre bs other nations like China, Japan, India, Germany, etc.
Agree. But it's even deeper. Teacher colleges teach incoming teachers that students cannot learn from books and that phonics is drill and kill. This has been taught for nearly 60 years. Same for math. Algorithms are bad. Children should invent own algorithms. Teachers shouldn't teach b cause kids supposedly learn more from talking to each other.
It isn't just social pandering making our schools horrible. It's the deliberate miseducation of both the educators and the children. It's insanity. And if the American public doesn't wake up soon and believe the people crying about the reading wars and the math wars and start fighting back way harder than we did even in the early 2000s, we are truly screwed.
Our children are already so horribly miseducated for the last 30 years that it's almost to the point where it's too late already. So stand up people and start going to the school meetings demanding that your children memorize things and learn things and study. Or you'll get what you don't fight for. You'll get what you've been getting and worse.
Yup. They also are the dumbest college cohort by SAT, as documented by Sowell and Walter Williams. A former Dean of the Boston College Ed School wrote an OpEd in WSJ in mid-80s, calling them the “dregs” of the student population.
So true! I am amazed at the black college professors willing to tell the truth! Sowell is so smart. Also loved the book Taboo: 10 things you can’t talk about. America needs to have the true discussion about crime and who is the victim.
Please don’t lose sight of the truth in your defensiveness. No great teachers touts their accomplishments AND he is correct. Awards mean nothing in this corrupt college system handing out degrees. You know the truth about who is coming out of the system, tell it.
I and all teachers are being pillaried here. If I were attacking all members of your profession as selfish, lazy, stupid low life's, would you be defensive? Be honest with yourself.
I hate the education system but the attacks on all teachers here is shameful. We are not a monolithic group. Some of us work harder than many of you ever will. Summer isn't ever off for me. I am lucky to get two weeks all to myself. I have tons to do. I am forced into trainings most of which I find useless as well.
I have furniture to move and deep cleaning of all the furniture in my room cause custodians don't clean classroom furniture. I have units to prepare which means laminating and cutting til the cows come home. This summer, I have an entire new curriculum and behavior management system to learn and prep which is literally a thousand pages to read and master before August.
I never get two weeks off at Christmas. I always work at least one week of it. So stick your critiques where the sun don't shine and speak about people you know. Which does not include me. Clearly.
Nice try, my profession is your profession. Not sure when you were indoctrinated but I am sorry you sold your soul. Your description of your hours and lack of time off is so transparent to people who know the industry. The difference between you and me is I worked public then private then public sector and am willing to be honest. I have worked way more hours than teachers as I am year round and for a fraction of the pay because I will not go back to the union addiction. I am not saying teachers don’t have a crap working environment but you are not telling the truth. There are very few like me and I will not stand down to the rhetoric. I am a truth teller in my job every day and don’t miss the union pay! Wake up and walk away because you know how corrupt the system is. It is very freeing to tell the truth. Schools are counting down to summer, you have way more time off than you are admitting and teaching anything of value has been done long before the last day of school. I am NOT bashing you or what you have to put up with. Education has so much to answer for and always go on the defense.
I teach in WA. I don't know what you expect teachers to do. Our admin and school boards buy millions of dollars of horrible curriculum. Then force fidelity to it. If you complain you WILL lose your job.
You sound like part of the solution. I'd say do what you can. I understand not wanting to lose your job but where possible try to avoid teaching bad curriculum. I'm sure there are many teachers such as yourself who are in a bad position but got into teaching because that's what they love to do and they're good at it.
Organize quietly and work with parents and conservative and moderate officials and have plans to defend yourselves legally while slowly retaking our schools. Identify candidates for your local school boards and volunteer to help get them elected. This socialist infestation didn’t happen overnight and it’s not going away without ongoing persistence and consistency.
Defend kids, complain less about your pay and work conditions, listen to parents who have concerns about what is being taught, get the truth out and quit defending policies around equity. The problem is the whole profession is addicted to pensions and union style pay. You really don’t know how the rest of us have to rely on our own retirement savings, no guaranteed paycheck. Teachers did not lose a penny during lockdowns, got stimulus checks and then got raises…..be a truth teller and walk away from the system. Vote for politicians that support vouchers and quit voting for idiots like Inslee. I am not insulting you or downplaying the mess we both know is the education system but it is time to walk away.
You made the right call. Public schools are worthless wastes of time on every level. The kids learn nothing. 90% administrators are a bunch of petty tyrants that could care less about if the kids succeed or not. Teachers, your lucky of you get 1 decent one a year, most are dumber then rocks. Covid exposed these people for how shitty they are at there jobs. If I was starting over again my kids would never step foot in one of these government indoctrination camps again.
You certainly could have done worse, which would have been to leave them in, and let 'teachers' get the credit.
And if you gave them your attention, tried to teach them, and especially if you got closer to them, then it was a net positive to take them out. Children get all the computer time they need (and IMO, much more than they need) and too often, it's just busy work to allow the 'teachers' to do less thinking, and working.
You know your children better than anyone and what's best to teach them things. You know the tactics to get and keep their attention, and how to relate it to other stuff that you know they grasp. "Teaching" them on Zoom, wasn't for the children, it was for the 'teachers' and the "teachers" union. The 'teachers' and the union could only think and plan how to take advantage of the situation to their benefit. Their actions showed that the could care less about the children.
And if they are really that scared, they shouldn't be "teachers". Cannot think of much worse attitudes than terror to cope with real world problems. We don't need "teachers" teaching them that inarticulate terror. They are not doing the children ANY favors by rolling up into a ball, like a insect.
THANK YOU! This hypochondriacal fear mongering victim hood is going to manifest itself in some pretty ugly ways down the road..for one, there will be an incredible shortage of shrinks to deal with these fragile beings....
Perhaps this is too far but the bosses wished to contribute to the sense that we were all in mortal danger. Made it that much easier for progressives to argue for altered voting mechanisms And now half the country or more has at least some questions about the authenticity of our elections.
The politicians, progressives, globalists, marxists and elitists used their unaccountable public health bureaucrats and bought and paid for media to traffic in fear and, unfortunately, we already had a generation of teachers who themselves are poorly educated and were easily manipulated into accepting the fear narrative (and it goes beyond teachers -- I add lots of doctors and other so-called professionals who went along to get along). The damage to children was so obvious by April 2020 to anyone who would just stand back and think about it for 5 minutes.
Curiously, the unions and their members who insist on carrying this forward will ultimately work themselves out of a job -- may take a while but the recession could fast track that result.
What a deal...these frauds still get paid to stay at home and fill skulls full of mush with CRT crap, 1619 Project propaganda, and transgenderism on our tax dime!
In a sense it backfired on them though because when classes started going online parents finally got to see how much CRT and woke content was present. It shocked them into action and thus you have the uprisings at school boards that elected Glenn Youngkin and got them all declared to be terrorists.
My 15 y/o grandson stayed with me while his school was on-line only. I watched every single one of his classes. NOT ONE teacher kept to the 40 minute learning schedule. They cut off after 15-20 minutes, sometimes showed up VERY late, or mumbled under a mask. BORING!! At times even I wanted to doze off. He failed 2 out of 5 classes, barely passed 2 more, and hated every minute of it. He missed his friends, his girlfriend, and, believe it or not, most of the teachers. A total waste of a school year.
Public Schools have failed miserably in teaching our kids so now they want to sexualize our kids starting in K ! Teachers are such big zeroes now, right? Not Heroes.
Most teachers don't teach CRT unless observed. At least not in my district. And we learn liberal not right. Teachers are your neighbors. Not monsters. For real.
If you teach in Wa, you know that is a lie unless you are in some small district on the East side of the mountains. CRT is imbedded in the curriculum including social emotional learning. Everything in our education starts with race. I have been in education a very long time and never used to know if teachers were dem or gop. I can’t find a conservative view in ANY of the meetings I am in. I attend with teachers, admin and school staff and have not found any independent, critical thinkers. They left education years ago and now we have group think and you know that is true. Please don’t defend the indefensible….countdown to summer started weeks ago and teaching is done long before school gets out. We have to tell the truth.
Wife and kids both in western WA school system. Everything you said is true, and, honestly, understated. There are a few experienced teachers who care about teaching still, but at least 60% have a single mission: how can they turn your kid into a liberal activist?
Claiming that half your teacher friends are GOP is a random anecdote and in NO way should be inferred as being anything close to the distribution of teachers as a group nationwide. Trust me, 95-99% of teachers are leftist, contributing close to all their donations to Democrats and VOTING for them! This is FACT.
"Teachers unions have steadily amped up their political involvement: From 2004 to 2016, their donations grew from $4.3 million to more than $32 million -- an all-time high. Even more than most labor unions, they have little use for Republicans, giving Democrats at least 94 percent of the funds they contributed to candidates and parties since as far back as 1990, where our data begins." --https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=L1300
This is very true and why unions for government workers (see public servants) are anathema to a free and civil society.
Never the less, these government union hacks have been allowed to exist and grow into the monsters they are by a public that has sought to offload their parental responsibilities on the government. The US culture became, have 2 kids, 2 cars, 2 jobs, one parent and let the government raise the kids while mom and sperm donor seek all the immediate gratification they can get their hands on.
This all has been an object lesson in what happens when a society has made government the central part of life, depend on it for all the things the people aren't interested in doing for themselves and defer critical decisions to the "experts" because they aren't interested in learning for themselves either.
I'm feeling pretty vindicated for taking my kids out of school the minute they tried to teach them on Zoom.
Monopoly schools run by a government monopoly are problems universally. True, portable, school choice vouchers will disempower these monopolists. Everyone against them has the goal of money and power for the unions and hence the democrat party.
Alex shouldn't be surprised that this happened, but within his bubble he probably wasn't exposed to the truth.
I think he's being sarcastic.
It helps to bring attention to their proported terror of death. If they are that 'sensitive' maybe they don't need to be teaching children. We need proactive reactions, not mindless fear. That gives the children, already aware of their smallness and ignorance only bad examples of how to "cope". That is worse than no teaching at all.
It was a net loss, the "teaching" that went on during the pandemic. And the teachers, and the unions are to blame for this. They thought FIRST of themselves, using the worst 'reason' of all, their self centeredness. We need children to strive to find solutions, and to have appropriate positive role models. The "teachers" need help themselves, if they really thought that they were in danger. They were TERRIBLE role models, as well as TERRIBLE "teachers"
Not only that but the perceived threat was for most people a sore throat and a cough. The dangers of Covid were vastly overblown and used strictly to manage and control the citizeds.
Disagree. You had to do a great deal of individual research to get to the truth, and even if you believed HCQ and IVM were effective treatments, it was damned near impossible to get them.
And you wonder why kids are sitting ducks for psychopaths. These chicken shit teachers would rather lock themselves in a closet than confront one of these lunatics and try to stop him. Unarmed or not, 1 guy with a gun couldn’t take out all 20 people if they charged at him.
I like your idea. We should train the students to all charge the shooter on command instead of cowering.
My daughter is a Pre-K director and has NEVER believed in any of this. She has seen the devastation firsthand because of the lockdowns and masks. She runs a site for a federal Pre-K program for low income students so it goes without saying that most of them don't have the support at home needed to keep their skills age appropriate. They're so far behind and now Kindergarten teachers are getting these kids. The ripple effect is going to be horrendous in a couple of years.
purported !
I think he [edit: Alex - just in case the "he" wasn't clear!] is just unaware of the true extent of the damage that unions do to students and schools. Now he is finally clueing in.
I think MANY people were just totally unaware of just had BAD the "teaching" is. Zoom "teaching" and the parents discovering what was really going on needed to be discovered first, before they make future decisions regarding their childrens "education".
BTW, indoctrination ISN'T education. "Teachers" jobs is not to teach children WHAT TO THINK, they need to teach children HOW to think.
Big difference.
🎯 Gender ideology, CRT, and political indoctrination do not belong in our schools!
Amen… errrr.. A-women to that brother… errr.. sister… I mean sibling… I’m so confused!!!
I do not consider HOW to think as a valid goal either. We don't teach naturally occurring actions like how to breath, how to chew. People will naturally figure out how to think. The teachers' job is to teach skills (reading, grammar, writing, math) and facts (science, history, geography, civics) to support their ability to think as it develops.
There have been a lot of very bright people who we can learn from. The classics, Shakespeare and many many others. A classical education-you can do far worse. Technical subjects can be taught later.
Not minimizing civics, history, geography and math either. Our "teaching" today is obvious in it's inadequacy. Many children 'graduating' from HS, cannot effectively read or write. It's a fraud on a VAST scale. Our society is competing with nations that are SERIOUS about education. We live in a temporary island, that the free market, and good fortune has given us. The rest of the world, much of it, is far worse off. We have been too comfortable for too long. People in these situations often are harshly woken up
Amen to this. The whole nonsense of teaching 21st century skills is destroying education.
As a teacher, I would like to say that zoom teaching in no way represents teaching in the classroom. Just in self defense. I had to do it, was rated as the best by my principal because my kids engaged and I kept a pace and actually covered some material in my 40 minutes of allowed time. BUT I sucked at it. I KNEW I sucked at it. I couldn't wait for in person.
Zooming from home was horrendous. I had people sitting on on my Zooms yelling at me for not calling on their child every time a hand was raised. It was insane.
I had parents and students calling my home phone from 7am to 9 at night. No joke. I was spending hours and hours creating PowerPoints the kids learned nothing but doing or didn't do at all. I spent hours checking five different platforms to see who was logging in and trying to contact kids who weren't. Fruitlessly.
I hated it. Most teachers I know hated it. Our unions fought us cing back without asking any of us what we wanted. I know many of us wrote letters complaining. It was insane.
Your union. You own it. Just like those 81 million who "voted' in Brandon. They own it all.
I think you do not understand Alex.
I certainly don’t agree with some things Alex says,but this thread illustrates why Alex sometimes is exasperated with those who post here.Alex is not an idiot.But if you couldn’t appreciate that when he says,”you’ll never guess what happened” he was utilizing sarcasm and irony,then you really need to on a “read/don’t comment” status for this substack.Otherwise you’re just going to be embarrassing yourself again and again…
Maybe you meant to reply elsewhere. I _do_ get Alex’s humour.
He is not being sarcastic. I have a friend who is a professor who refuses to teach students in person because he thinks their "presence" will kill him. Really.
"Sweden kept it's schools open and you'll never guess what happened next. There was no learning loss."------ I think Alex expected that there would be no learning loss with schools open. I don't think he was surprised.
A friend of mine from college referred to herself and fellow teachers as sacrificial lambs when the government dared talk about reopening schools. They really have lost all sense of proportion.
Meanwhile they shop at stores that have way more people in them that they know nothing about as opposed to their controlled environment classroom with the same group of children in them every day. Some have been frightened by the hyperbole others are just following Randi Whinegargler et al to squeeze taxpayers for more money but are unwilling to budge on merit pay for teachers based on student educational outcomes.
Never had a sense of proportion to have lost. The "professionals" in the education industry are measurably the stupidest on earth. Journalists are a very close second.
Amazing what this has done to individual political position. I once thought vouchers were an attempt to re-segregate schools. I was for M4All. Teachers Unions have destroyed the first and CMS mandates on hospitals prohibiting effective treatments, pushing homicide with ventilators and firing unvaxxed workers have me questioning M4All.
Yeah, vouchers are a way to ensure competition and end monopoly. They are particularly important for the poor of all skin colors who have no choice and can't afford Sidwell Friends in DC.
Why be so snide? It's no necessary.
Time for separation of school and state.
There will be no apology. America needs to wake up to the scam and quit saying how wonderful the teachers are and how much they care. They are overpaid part time employees! They were failing before the lockdowns. They are the epitome of the sheep!! In Wa our kids can’t do math, read or write so their brilliant idea is to throw out tests that put their failure on display in the name of….yep, racism!! I know there are a few good ones left but they are not the norm!!
Exactly. I cannot stand hearing how "hard" they work. They are done with school by 3 PM and have whole summers off. Give me a break.
It is ridiculous. I am also tired of hearing about how they are heroes. Even if teaching was heroic in some way, they behaved like cowards during Covid, while still demanding they be recognized as heroes.
I don't know, but I went back to in person learning in October of 2020. Way before any office workers I know. Told it was safer in schools even though just like all illnesses when schools opened, illness rates skyrocketed.
I'm not afraid of COVID, but the media scared most of my coworkers to death. They were legit terrified. As were millions who stayed at home while we went in to babysit kids they wanted out of the house. So stop with picking on all teachers.
Not one teacher in my district campaigned to stop schools from opening. Not one. Yet we were the first district to open.
Good for your district for opening first. But millions of other people never stayed home from work and millions were forced to stay home when they couldn’t afford it. Not all teachers behave badly, but there are many who do and they are loud and obnoxious and parents are reasonably concerned. Instead of addressing our concerns, we get extreme defensiveness from you and insulted. Comments from teachers are insulting. You act like you work harder than everyone else and that you are above criticism and that parents are horrible for being angry and concerned about the current state of education. It is a mess. Maybe we can start taking about those issues and working together to make it better for everyone, otherwise people are going to continue to take their kids out of public education. As soon as I can convince my husband, I am taking my kids out. I don’t feel like my voice as a parent is being heard. I am not alone in that. It may not be the fault of all teachers, but irregardless of whose fault it is, I’m sick of public education and being lectured by teachers about how they work harder and are better than everyone else. I appreciate you have a tough job, so do I and lots of other people. At the end of the day, I want my kids to learn and be able to thrive in school without worrying about their safety. Currently public education is failing and it is getting worse and not better.
Change jobs with teacher for just a week. And now they’re suppose to defend their students to the death if a gunman enters the class. On pay that’s 2/3 of a nurse. It’s not the teachers who have failed the students, it’s parents who have failed their kids and society expects teachers to make up for bad parenting. A teacher can’t do miracles and that’s what’s expected of them now. They’re dealing with damaged BRAINS, that can’t be fixed. There is so much drug and alcohol damage in kids (from the mother in utero) plus disintegrating home life, hunger, poverty, jailed parents, divorce, neglect, physical and sexual abuse, these kids are in the same classroom as the normal kids but so much energy goes into dealing with these behaviors the normal kids are deeply affected. God forbid if a teacher can’t teach a damaged brain to recognize letters or numbers, their fault! On $20/hr or less!
First, I was a teacher and mentored during a time when teachers did care. I am still working closely to the system. Let me give you a fact: a middle school art teacher who teaches 5 classes a day and is out of the building before 3 makes over a hundred thousand for part time work. That does not include the over $800 per month for their benefits.
We understand kids are a mess but they are NOT teaching skills. 72% of students in Wa cannot pass a basic math test. When I asked the math department head at the high school about it the reply was “ test scores are the LEAST of my concerns”. I appreciate you wanting to give them the benefit but schools are a mess because the bad teachers are now in admin. There is no consequences for behavior that is disruptive to the learning of others. School choice will only be the beginning of the change parents and their kids deserve.
@BD- you are correct. Teachers get no support from admins anymore. Admins are too worried about what people will think of them instead of the welfare of the child.
Well, yes, art teachers are an extreme example tho. Most are not art teachers.
Don’t play word games, the pay is the same and you know it. The “we only get payed for 10 months” is a BS narrative. Your benefit dollars are year round and if you add up all the time off including sick leave and personal days, you are much closer to 16 weeks off every year. Be honest, you are HUGELY paid and the job is just not that difficult. If kids were held accountable for behavior your job is a breeze. Many teachers cannot pass the basic tests, I know because my friend couldn’t pass the 3rd grade national standard test. Again, I am not downplaying the toxic environment but teachers are a part of the problem. Students should not know who you vote for, sleep with or much about your personal life, they should know how to read, write and do math. We have all failed these kids with our silence!
I always wonder why teachers seem to think they have a good argument by pointing out that they cannot be expected to do the job.
If that is the case, why exactly should we continue paying you? I don’t pay people year after year if they assure me that the job cannot be done.
Have you ever taught? Do it for a week and come back to the same conclusion.
No but I work 60 hours a week with no summer vacation, winter vacation, spring break, fall break, work weekends once a month, and often holiday's are worked as well. When teachers do that I'll respect them. Until then they are lazy whiners.
Hi Ron. I understand that the system is in great need of an overhaul, but you are really misinformed. I am a college instructor, and I recently went back to the high school level and taught English for two years. Please understand that we are not off at 3:00. I spent all of my evenings and weekends grading essays and planning. There was maybe an hour a day to grade and plan while I was at school. We are also not paid in the summer. We have the option to take a 10 month salary (the school year) and stretch it into 12 months. Many teachers do not have any income during the summer and get jobs in order to make ends meet. I no longer teach at that level because it was exhausting and draining. Teachers aren't just teaching curriculum; they are dealing with a lot things they should not have to deal with. I think it's really important to know the facts before you make statements like the ones you've made. You have no idea what you are talking about.
Boo hoo. You understand we all work when we get home nowadays right? And are you really complaining that there's "a lot of things you should not have to deal with"? Welcome to the real world - we all deal with BS at work that we didn't sign up for. Also complaining that you aren't getting paid for not working - the entitlement is palpable. Yeah it sounds "so exhausting and draining". You wouldn't last 1 month in most competitive work environments.
I have worked in private sector til I was forty. Most on private sector do not work sixty hours a week either and whine if they do.
Teaching is exhausting. Compared to office work. No joke. And now, I can't do much as put my hand in a child's hand to pull them along if they don't want to be in line with class. It's considered abusive.
If you give me rules that are insane (which arise from parental complaints of abuse btw), then yes, I'm exhausted. And that is one example. I am not to raise my voice or ever be angry with a child either.
Yet I'm sent children who will not listen and who by fourth grade tell me to F off.
10 years and still working in the system. Same conclusion AND cannot express the difference in teachers now, so disappointing.
@Ron- STTTAHHHPPPPP The REAL teachers work year 'round by lesson planning. continuing education (mandatory), always on the lookout for something new and interesting. Some are lazy like you mentioned but most are not. My daughter is a 12 month teacher because she's also a director of a Head Start.
Do you make what teachers make? Getting 25 children to listen to lessons and actually learn something, many of them with emotional problems, learning problems (from mothers who took drugs or alcohol in pregnancy), behavioral issues which can become violent, while making less than $20/hr, nothing compares, nothing. Spare me the screeching violins of your job.
Of course the job has its challenges. All jobs do. You also signed up to do the job and then complain constantly. Education has become increasingly political and parents are tired of it. Anyone who has a job caring for people has to deal with challenging situations. Any criticism of teachers or the education system is met with extreme defensiveness. Very few in education will admit there some deep problems and understand why parents are reasonably upset. Teachers often make it all about themselves the defend the education system while children are the ones being negatively affected. Education isn’t the only institution where this happening either. I am a nurse and I see many of the same problems in healthcare as well. Patients can be difficult with many difficult emotional problems and they can be and have been violent. They are adults that have injured my co-workers on the job. We took care of thousands of covid patients on my unit. We didn’t shut down for any period of time. It was very challenging and still is. But, we are doing the job we signed up for. And we did sign up for it. There will always be unexpected challenges any job and some problems will always be there. There will always be terrible parents who do terrible things to their children, but there are also great parents who take great care of the their children. There will always be patients who have awful pasts and do terrible things that make my job hard. There are also many wonderful people I have had the opportunity to meet and take care of. None of that will ever change.
Nope. . teachers were attacked I this thread and are telling the facts of how hard the profession has become. That isn't complaining. You called us lazy whiners. We are allowed to defend.
"many of them with emotional problems, learning problems (from mothers who took drugs or alcohol in pregnancy), behavioral issues which can become violent, while making less than $20/hr"
So, you are talking about the teachers, right?
Most folks go to work, do their thankless jobs and live their lives. I’m quite sick of hearing kids conveying the grievances of their teachers. It tells me that teachers are using classroom time, which should be used to teach things like math and reading, to air their various grievances to their students. Insanity. Anyone else allowed to complain to customers about salary and work hours? I mean without getting fired.
I agree that no teacher ever should tell kids they have problems. Rarely, rarely I have heard teachers do this. But if it happens regularly at your school, complain. Get others to complain. It will stop
We no longer can discipline students due to parent complaints, so...
i see you are also familiar with libsoftiktok
Yes, I regularly check it out. Before that, once upon a time when I was single, I went on quite a few dates with teachers. (in the San Francisco Bay Area) I usually found my self thinking after the date: "wow, she has problems, no wonder she is still single" and not going on a second date. My now wife got her teaching credential after being in the corporate world for a while. After spending maybe 3 months substitute teaching in a public school, she said: This is not for me. There was a ton of gossip and bullying between the teachers. She said it felt like a bunch of emotionally stunted people all acting like they were reliving Jr. High. She then went back into the corporate world where she remains today.
The kind with active TikTok accounts and green or pink hair.
Ha.
sure if the teachers actually did that
but our country ranks 23rd (arguably as poor as 42nd) in the world in terms of students taking international standardized tests
teachers these days are more interested teaching anal sex and calling all the white kids racist & frankly that requires very little skill. although, i guess if there was an international test for that, then we'd be #1
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2017/04/07/what-international-test-scores-reveal-about-american-education/
Wow that sounds so hard! 25 people! I cannot imagine that while I sit here responsible for managing over 350 people. If they are making $20/hr they are overpaid.
You manage 350 people who won't do their work or sit at their desk and whom you cannot fire or discipline? Wow.
They are basically children so yes. This is what's so ridiculous about the teaching community. They actually think their job is uniquely difficult. It isn't and the vast majority of them are just on the government dole because they are incompetent. I wouldn't trust 90% of my kids teachers to manage a Wendy's.
I'm s teacher and take offense. If it's so easy, you should do it for us for half the pay. I agree teachers in WA shouldn't complain at all about pay. But it is a demanding, exhausting job. I never am done by three and come in on weekends because by 5 pm I'm exhausted from running on my feet all day. Maybe if I were twenty again, it would be an easy job, but it is my profession and I can't just quit for something else.
Sheep take better care of their lambs.
Wow. Rude. As a teacher, I am so offended. So offended. You say these things as if teachers aren't human beings. It is rude and cruel and unfair. Teaching is a hard profession. Due to crazy expectations from both admin and parents. We aren't allowed to teach. You get fired if you discipline kids even by taking away recess. No joke. Recess is now sacrosanct.
You cannot hug children, you cannot touch shoulders to redirect. In my district that is considered holding them punitively.
I have to use a crappy curriculum with fidelity that ensures kids don't learn. I have to sneak in phonics. It's not enough.
If teaching is so easy and well paid, you do it. Stop complaining and get in here and show us all how easy it is.
Do we really think the evil Randy Weingarten would ever apologize? As head of the teachers' union she mimicked Mighty Mouse Fauci and seized the power and ran with it. I actually believe a small minority of teachers really care about the kids. They care about their summers off; holidays and the chance to exercise their activist muscles. Oh, and of course, their pensions.
When you say a small amount we are talking about 0.000001%. The kids do not matter to these folks.
What do you mean?? The teachers are working really hard.... at teaching your kids all about CRT and gender fluidity. 😉
🤣🤣🤣
Public Schools have failed miserably in teaching our kids so now they want to sexualize our kids starting in K ! Teachers are such big zeroes now, right? Not Heroes.
The Plandemic was an irresistible temptation for the Bolsheviks that own the teachers unions to advance their Marxist agenda. Fortunately it led to overreach and the curtain was pulled back long enough for us to see that there was some serious fuckery going on behind our backs.
I wish you were correct. But the unions still control everything as does the National School Board Association and all the idiotic teacher colleges. I know. I'm a teacher. As we speak, the schools are sneaking whole language back in to schools nationwide by adopting American Reading Company. Kindergarten thru most of first, it ignores phonics. And children are never taught to sound out. Never.
How this is happening after all research shows this is awful for kids, I don't know. But there you have it. Wake up parents. Your children are not only being indoctrinated but being taught to be functionally illiterate.
My point is that we got a glimpse of the serious problems which has created a growing backlash to begin taking on the multitude of problems within our public schools. The struggle has begun in earnest and it is real.
They don’t teach basic economics or civics because its harder to demogogue and pander to educated voters. They waste time teaching divisive social topics that takes away from basic building block studies like math, science, language arts, reading, and English composition aka “writing”. Meanwhile our students are ranked in the mediocre bs other nations like China, Japan, India, Germany, etc.
Agree. But it's even deeper. Teacher colleges teach incoming teachers that students cannot learn from books and that phonics is drill and kill. This has been taught for nearly 60 years. Same for math. Algorithms are bad. Children should invent own algorithms. Teachers shouldn't teach b cause kids supposedly learn more from talking to each other.
It isn't just social pandering making our schools horrible. It's the deliberate miseducation of both the educators and the children. It's insanity. And if the American public doesn't wake up soon and believe the people crying about the reading wars and the math wars and start fighting back way harder than we did even in the early 2000s, we are truly screwed.
Our children are already so horribly miseducated for the last 30 years that it's almost to the point where it's too late already. So stand up people and start going to the school meetings demanding that your children memorize things and learn things and study. Or you'll get what you don't fight for. You'll get what you've been getting and worse.
Yup. They also are the dumbest college cohort by SAT, as documented by Sowell and Walter Williams. A former Dean of the Boston College Ed School wrote an OpEd in WSJ in mid-80s, calling them the “dregs” of the student population.
So true! I am amazed at the black college professors willing to tell the truth! Sowell is so smart. Also loved the book Taboo: 10 things you can’t talk about. America needs to have the true discussion about crime and who is the victim.
Some. Personally, I was a National Merit Scholar. So...
Please don’t lose sight of the truth in your defensiveness. No great teachers touts their accomplishments AND he is correct. Awards mean nothing in this corrupt college system handing out degrees. You know the truth about who is coming out of the system, tell it.
I and all teachers are being pillaried here. If I were attacking all members of your profession as selfish, lazy, stupid low life's, would you be defensive? Be honest with yourself.
I hate the education system but the attacks on all teachers here is shameful. We are not a monolithic group. Some of us work harder than many of you ever will. Summer isn't ever off for me. I am lucky to get two weeks all to myself. I have tons to do. I am forced into trainings most of which I find useless as well.
I have furniture to move and deep cleaning of all the furniture in my room cause custodians don't clean classroom furniture. I have units to prepare which means laminating and cutting til the cows come home. This summer, I have an entire new curriculum and behavior management system to learn and prep which is literally a thousand pages to read and master before August.
I never get two weeks off at Christmas. I always work at least one week of it. So stick your critiques where the sun don't shine and speak about people you know. Which does not include me. Clearly.
Nice try, my profession is your profession. Not sure when you were indoctrinated but I am sorry you sold your soul. Your description of your hours and lack of time off is so transparent to people who know the industry. The difference between you and me is I worked public then private then public sector and am willing to be honest. I have worked way more hours than teachers as I am year round and for a fraction of the pay because I will not go back to the union addiction. I am not saying teachers don’t have a crap working environment but you are not telling the truth. There are very few like me and I will not stand down to the rhetoric. I am a truth teller in my job every day and don’t miss the union pay! Wake up and walk away because you know how corrupt the system is. It is very freeing to tell the truth. Schools are counting down to summer, you have way more time off than you are admitting and teaching anything of value has been done long before the last day of school. I am NOT bashing you or what you have to put up with. Education has so much to answer for and always go on the defense.
I teach in WA. I don't know what you expect teachers to do. Our admin and school boards buy millions of dollars of horrible curriculum. Then force fidelity to it. If you complain you WILL lose your job.
You sound like part of the solution. I'd say do what you can. I understand not wanting to lose your job but where possible try to avoid teaching bad curriculum. I'm sure there are many teachers such as yourself who are in a bad position but got into teaching because that's what they love to do and they're good at it.
Organize quietly and work with parents and conservative and moderate officials and have plans to defend yourselves legally while slowly retaking our schools. Identify candidates for your local school boards and volunteer to help get them elected. This socialist infestation didn’t happen overnight and it’s not going away without ongoing persistence and consistency.
Defend kids, complain less about your pay and work conditions, listen to parents who have concerns about what is being taught, get the truth out and quit defending policies around equity. The problem is the whole profession is addicted to pensions and union style pay. You really don’t know how the rest of us have to rely on our own retirement savings, no guaranteed paycheck. Teachers did not lose a penny during lockdowns, got stimulus checks and then got raises…..be a truth teller and walk away from the system. Vote for politicians that support vouchers and quit voting for idiots like Inslee. I am not insulting you or downplaying the mess we both know is the education system but it is time to walk away.
You made the right call. Public schools are worthless wastes of time on every level. The kids learn nothing. 90% administrators are a bunch of petty tyrants that could care less about if the kids succeed or not. Teachers, your lucky of you get 1 decent one a year, most are dumber then rocks. Covid exposed these people for how shitty they are at there jobs. If I was starting over again my kids would never step foot in one of these government indoctrination camps again.
You certainly could have done worse, which would have been to leave them in, and let 'teachers' get the credit.
And if you gave them your attention, tried to teach them, and especially if you got closer to them, then it was a net positive to take them out. Children get all the computer time they need (and IMO, much more than they need) and too often, it's just busy work to allow the 'teachers' to do less thinking, and working.
You know your children better than anyone and what's best to teach them things. You know the tactics to get and keep their attention, and how to relate it to other stuff that you know they grasp. "Teaching" them on Zoom, wasn't for the children, it was for the 'teachers' and the "teachers" union. The 'teachers' and the union could only think and plan how to take advantage of the situation to their benefit. Their actions showed that the could care less about the children.
And if they are really that scared, they shouldn't be "teachers". Cannot think of much worse attitudes than terror to cope with real world problems. We don't need "teachers" teaching them that inarticulate terror. They are not doing the children ANY favors by rolling up into a ball, like a insect.
THANK YOU! This hypochondriacal fear mongering victim hood is going to manifest itself in some pretty ugly ways down the road..for one, there will be an incredible shortage of shrinks to deal with these fragile beings....
We are already here. It's not down the road. Talk to college freshmen and you'll see.
I learned that my son's science teacher "reaffirmed their gender" over his Zoom class. He's homeschooled now.
I reaffirm that water is wet, genetics is genetics. In short reality is reality and A is A. 😂
same!
Yes - but did you write a will?
Home instruction made YOU into a teacher…in great danger….from the children.
You're my hero. I should've done the same.
But who is attacking you in their relentless pursuit of vindictiveness?
Awesome!
Union hacks looking to avoid work. It's a story as old as the first card holder leaning on a shovel.
Perhaps this is too far but the bosses wished to contribute to the sense that we were all in mortal danger. Made it that much easier for progressives to argue for altered voting mechanisms And now half the country or more has at least some questions about the authenticity of our elections.
The politicians, progressives, globalists, marxists and elitists used their unaccountable public health bureaucrats and bought and paid for media to traffic in fear and, unfortunately, we already had a generation of teachers who themselves are poorly educated and were easily manipulated into accepting the fear narrative (and it goes beyond teachers -- I add lots of doctors and other so-called professionals who went along to get along). The damage to children was so obvious by April 2020 to anyone who would just stand back and think about it for 5 minutes.
Curiously, the unions and their members who insist on carrying this forward will ultimately work themselves out of a job -- may take a while but the recession could fast track that result.
Way more than questions, WE know happened , just like the shit show last night on ABC ! Only Tucker got it right !
How Pelosi is still in her position is criminal on it's face
What a deal...these frauds still get paid to stay at home and fill skulls full of mush with CRT crap, 1619 Project propaganda, and transgenderism on our tax dime!
In a sense it backfired on them though because when classes started going online parents finally got to see how much CRT and woke content was present. It shocked them into action and thus you have the uprisings at school boards that elected Glenn Youngkin and got them all declared to be terrorists.
When some school districts were trying to have parents sign agreements not to listen in on kids school sessions, that should have been a big warning.
My 15 y/o grandson stayed with me while his school was on-line only. I watched every single one of his classes. NOT ONE teacher kept to the 40 minute learning schedule. They cut off after 15-20 minutes, sometimes showed up VERY late, or mumbled under a mask. BORING!! At times even I wanted to doze off. He failed 2 out of 5 classes, barely passed 2 more, and hated every minute of it. He missed his friends, his girlfriend, and, believe it or not, most of the teachers. A total waste of a school year.
Public Schools have failed miserably in teaching our kids so now they want to sexualize our kids starting in K ! Teachers are such big zeroes now, right? Not Heroes.
Most teachers don't teach CRT unless observed. At least not in my district. And we learn liberal not right. Teachers are your neighbors. Not monsters. For real.
Half the teachers I know are Republican. So...
If you teach in Wa, you know that is a lie unless you are in some small district on the East side of the mountains. CRT is imbedded in the curriculum including social emotional learning. Everything in our education starts with race. I have been in education a very long time and never used to know if teachers were dem or gop. I can’t find a conservative view in ANY of the meetings I am in. I attend with teachers, admin and school staff and have not found any independent, critical thinkers. They left education years ago and now we have group think and you know that is true. Please don’t defend the indefensible….countdown to summer started weeks ago and teaching is done long before school gets out. We have to tell the truth.
Wife and kids both in western WA school system. Everything you said is true, and, honestly, understated. There are a few experienced teachers who care about teaching still, but at least 60% have a single mission: how can they turn your kid into a liberal activist?
Claiming that half your teacher friends are GOP is a random anecdote and in NO way should be inferred as being anything close to the distribution of teachers as a group nationwide. Trust me, 95-99% of teachers are leftist, contributing close to all their donations to Democrats and VOTING for them! This is FACT.
"Teachers unions have steadily amped up their political involvement: From 2004 to 2016, their donations grew from $4.3 million to more than $32 million -- an all-time high. Even more than most labor unions, they have little use for Republicans, giving Democrats at least 94 percent of the funds they contributed to candidates and parties since as far back as 1990, where our data begins." --https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=L1300
This is very true and why unions for government workers (see public servants) are anathema to a free and civil society.
Never the less, these government union hacks have been allowed to exist and grow into the monsters they are by a public that has sought to offload their parental responsibilities on the government. The US culture became, have 2 kids, 2 cars, 2 jobs, one parent and let the government raise the kids while mom and sperm donor seek all the immediate gratification they can get their hands on.
This all has been an object lesson in what happens when a society has made government the central part of life, depend on it for all the things the people aren't interested in doing for themselves and defer critical decisions to the "experts" because they aren't interested in learning for themselves either.