Why do you say I’m like a teacher in the summertime?
Because I’ve begun to address the assembled fruits & vegetables in the produce aisle?
Because I give the stink-eye to other people’s out-of-control children?
Because I ate leftover easter candy for breakfast?
Because, to ease the shock of withdrawal, I’m up at all hours substituting my extraordinarily high level of personal interaction-in-the-classroom with the blogosphere?
So, here is my own blog. Not much. Not yet.
There have been a few visits, fewer comments.
I was childishly thrilled to see that thefieldnegro placed my page in the ‘blog he is feeling’ spotlight.
Lots more visits. No comments.
Checking for (and not finding) comments spotlights my need for attention, my need for approval, my lack of class.
So, (I ask, with an appalling lack of shame) what bothers you about our public education system?
Don’t bother with qualifying niceties. Cut to the chase.
Field graciously bestowed the honor on me recently, and I observed the same thing. Lots more visits, no comments. And I have the same need for attention and approval, apparently.
The biggest problem with PS education is the way schools are funded. Funding comes from the local area, so poor neighborhoods have less funding and rich neighborhoods have better funding. That seems like a pretty sure fire way of insuring that things remain the same. Its remarkable that in all of this time, no one has championed a more sensible way of funding schools.
Oh dang, the thing that bugs me is already taken. Yes, I hate those built-in funding inequities. And then I hate the people – whose children always attend well-funded schools – who say “you can’t fix the public school system by just throwing money at it.” Gahhhhh…..head exploding….
My sister-in-law and niece are teachers and they work their asses off. So the other thing that makes me crazy is how little they are paid and how people are always whining about the teacher’s union, as if teachers are living high off the hog while lazing around all the time doing not much of anything. And these same people don’t bat an eye when the Rethuglicans tell us we need another tax cut for the very rich.
Blood pressure rising…must stop….
Yeah,
The funding is a trip. When I worked in the ‘jects, because of federal grants and ‘at-risk’ status, the school recieved more $ per student than any other school in the district. And there was nothing! I bought the school supplies my students needed, pencils – everything. Teachers brought their own paper for the copier. When the toner ran out, we would pool our money and buy a new one.
Speaking of pool. I found out that there was a betting pool among the office staff to see how many weeks I would last(I was hired in late September-two previous teachers assigned to that class walked out). I should’ve won that money come to think of it.
No textbooks that first year either. I wrote the curriculum.
Now that I work in a neighborhood which is the polar (and I do mean Northern European) opposite. The PTA raises nearly 100k per year. The supply room is always open. The PE teachers have equipment I’ve never seen before. Two teaching positions are paid for by the neighborhood (PTA).
Something happens to federal funds. I think it’s like street drugs. Every middle man “steps” on it a little bit until it becomes the diluted end product – less effective.
Quakerjew,
Very interesting comment about Federal funds.
There are so many things wrong with our current public school system.
This no child left behind is a bunch of crap. Kids studying to take tests all the time instead of learning things about history, science, math and English. And, whatever happened to art and music?
Then there is this charter business and farming out public education to private enterprise. Excuse me?
Parents who don’t take an active role in their kid’s education.
Kids being allowed to terrorize their teachers.
Teachers babysitting instead of teaching.
Schools in poor neighborhoods underfunded because that’s the way the system is set up. It should be the opposite in these cases!
Stupid, antiquated text books which are not only BORING, they are inaccurate.
I could keep on going, but I’ll shut up now. I think I heard the bell anyway.
What bothers me the most is that every politician talks about education and no real steps are ever taken by legislators to empower teachers, improve literacy rates, reduce class sizes, effectively suit curricula to students’ individual needs, etc. So it seems to me that there is an undeclared but deliberate war on public education.
We never hear politicians say, “What we need is the best, most sophisticated bombs and military technology and the best means of preserving the awesome might of American based multi-national corporations…” Yet that seems to be where their sole focus is.
Whitney, the testing thing is a crazy machine.
Funny thing how it has affected my academic life. I score unnaturally and inaccurately high on them. This gave my teachers & admin. (for they paddled me often) a false impression of my abilities.
Left me completely unprepared for college.
-
And OH OH OH AF!
I want to write about the poor little education pony that politicians ride into office. Something about Mr. Ed the talking horse – still rolling around in my brain.
“the best, most sophisticated bombs and military tech…” Damning truth.
Some real terrorizing of teachers happens in those charter schools. The school is far more needy for the $ that each student represents.
My eldest son is going to college to study English this fall. He correctly identified that as his strong point but it’s hard for me to get excited about, more so since I don’t have a job right now, working on it. I read the poems you’ve posted and liked them OK. Wordsworth spoiled my poem reading forever with we are seven, I cry when I read that every time. Love your Blog, Tom
Well Tom,
no wonder you’re up at all hours!
Just read “We Are Seven”. Thank you for that.
I thought your comment knocked over my fireplug, but reading that poem on top of it, well, here comes the fountain.
My dad told me he’d pay for me to go to school anywhere in the country I wanted to go, as long as I didn’t major in Art.
Art it was, then. He made my decision for me, but that’s the sort of ass I was at 18.
He was right about that. As he was about my learning to type. His ghost whispers,”I told you” every time I sit at the keyboard and ready my two fingers.
He was kidnapped and murdered eighteen years ago.
Last fall, a ten-year-old boy in my class lost his father (also named Tom). At the memorial svc. I saw a picture of the two of them shaving in the bathroom mirror -crumbled me to pieces.
I explained to the rest of the kids in the class what had happened, and the counselor recommended that we make sympathy cards. A little girl said to me, “I feel so sad for Nick. I don’t know what I would do if I lost my mom.”
Why she said mom and not dad, I don’t know. I told her that this sort of thing is so very rare. She shouldn’t worry. Nothing will happen to her mom.
I lied. Her mom was killed in an car accident a week later.
The “We Are Seven” poem underscores one of the selfish reasons I do what I do. Being around those people (elementary kids) is a fiercely beautiful thing.
So how to get your son to change his major?
Writing computer programming code is language arts too. I wonder if he could get involved in some of that during his first year, and gently turn his battleship toward a marketable course of study.
Garrison Keeler (sp?), another English major, has funny stuff to say about his brethren.
Thanks for the visit, Papa.
Hope to hear back.
Also, Tom.
I read a lot of your comments on sites we both visit. I think we share a lot of viewpoints on a lot of issues. Thanks for speaking your mind (and often mine).
“Writing computer programming code is language arts too”
I’ve been gently nudging him in that direction. He taught himself HTML and CSS well enough to make a nice site template for a girlfriend and he told me was going to learn Python this summer. He does get a thrill from pleasing people with his writing in both areas. Nice chatting with you. Take care.
it doesnt educate
and parents dont as a whole do either