A Teachable Moment

At least those striking teachers are getting enough to eat!

Not to denigrate teachers too much, but they suck. Currently a posse of these glorified baby-sitters are entering their second week of a strike in Chicago. What's all the fuss about? They are outraged that they might have to be held accountable for their teaching skills. With American students placing 25th in math, 17th in science and 14th in reading as compared with students around the world, no wonder they are freaked out. The rap is that teachers are so overworked, so underpaid and so important. None of that is true, if you ask me. I've been employed as a teacher twice in my life, and both times I was dismayed, disappointed and depressed to see what really goes on--or doesn't go on--in our classrooms.

 The first was a year-long stint as an adult education teacher of graphic design at a prestigious art college in Washington, D. C. Even though many of the students were years older than I, that didn't stop them from being big crybabies. It was then that I realized that anyone who wanted to learn did, and the rest were just there for the credits. The next time was years later in Salt Lake City, where I attempted to teach sixth-graders the fundamentals of art. Working at a school one block from my home allowed me to go home for lunch every day and down a glass of red wine to get through the afternoon. Those kids drove me to it--them and that horrid Amy Wadsworth, the school's tight-ass principal.

Schools in America are daycare centers, plain and simple. Kids naturally have tons of energy and all they want to do is run around, play outside and make spitballs. They don't want to learn just because someone says it's now time to learn, they learn when and where they want and in unexpected places. Teachers are simply the hired thugs who keep them in line. And that bunch in Chicago, the birthplace of thuggery, are the worst of the lot. God forbid they should have to prove that they are worth their pay by having their students pass a knowledge test! Obviously, the very fact that their students are now on the streets for a second week, or home alone because their parents work, is proof that the striking teachers care little for their charges and only for themselves.