Teachers drink bottled water for 5 years before children are warned...

[JailBush]

Seattle's Wedgwood Elementary School just made the news after parents discovered its drinking water might not be safe. Turns out the teachers have been drinking bottled water for five years!

Yup, sounds like the teachers I worked with for more than a decade. They don't give a shit about their students' physical or emotional health. I've seen students eating food that made me want to puke. (The district is privatizing its food services, with predictable results.) A couple years ago, it was discovered that some Seattle Schools cafeterias were going for as long as year between health inspections!

No teacher I know of defends children from the emotional trauma inflicted by high-stakes tests. Hell, some schools cancel recess so that kids can study for those vile tests.

So how are the food and water in YOUR local school? If you have kids who are enrolled in public schools, have you ever eaten a school lunch? Great corn dogs, huh?

If the teachers don't care, and the parents don't care, who's going to stick up for the kids - the kids themselves???

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/education/2001806101_water03m0.html

[politicat]

1. I'm sorry you worked with teachers like this. I have never experienced

that. Every teacher I have worked with has been very interested in educating and turning out well educated student-citizens

Frequently, they bitched to me about the hamstringing the districts did to them. The bemoaned the parents with quick lawyers and no other interest. But they did the very best they could with what they were given.

I've known teachers who were canned for being gay (a student decided to blackmail him and he wouldn't put up with it so the kid accused him of sexual harassment), atheist (she got moved to administration so she wouldn't corrupt their minds) but not a one of them blamed the kids, even the kid who deserved it.

It's the hardest job there is - the pay's bad, so the kids don't respect you (not in this culture, where money is king); the parents are only interested in their kid and their kid getting a free pass; administration has no money because they paid themselves first.... I guess I can't blame anyone in that environment for not caring.... I'd think it's similar to what a combat vet deals with after a while, a flattened affect and a lack of emotion.

Politicat

[JailBush]

3. Most of the teachers I worked with cared about the students in their

classes, but in a very narrow sense. They want the kids to do well in school, but they're utterly oblivious to all the crap corporations and derelict school officials are raining down on the kids. They frequently hide behind their students, using them as an excuse for their apathy.

The pay's bad because teachers accept bad pay. In sixteen years, I never saw teachers make a credible effort to better their lot. It's true that parents are out to lunch - but teachers do nothing to educate or rally them. In fact, teachers used to get mad at me for talking to parents. It's simply amazing how secretive teachers are; they really don't want parents to know what's going on in the schools they pay for, and they don't realize how twisted their thinking is. They think they're being professional by keeping parents in the dark.

What's really interesting is when you present a teacher with these observations - not in the middle of a busy classroom, but in a calm situation where s/he has time to actually think about what you're saying. I swear to God, you can almost hear the sound of gears crashing in their heads - their minds can't handle it! I've seen teachers literally break into tears or erupt in anger after I'd made very simple but truthful comments about our principals, "union," etc.

We desperately need some adults in the classroom.

[Systematic Chaos]

2. It's not that all teachers are bad.

But most of them are eventually brow beaten into just showing up to collect a meager paycheck because of all the pressures they face from parents, administrators, and hyperactive sugared-up kids every day.

Until I feel that the public education system in this country has reinvented itself and become a place where all students learn the skills that really matter, like critical thought, there's simply no way I'll do anything but home-school my children should I have any.

[democratreformed]

5. I have experience in the public school here

from a few angles. I was a teacher (middle school and high school), parent of a high school student, and parent of an elementary student.
When I left teaching, it was with the firm belief that our school was a failure and that sweeping reform is necessary to fix that. My son spent his first year in the public school. The second year, he spent three days there before I took him out and put him in a small private school. I can honestly say this is the best thing I have ever done for my son and his education.

My daughter, on the other hand (10 years older than my son), graduated from the public school last year. If I had known then (when she was little) what I know now, I would have put her somewhere else too. The sad fact is that she is currently working to catch up on the education that she missed out on. I am very proud of her. She is in college but she has to take several remedial classes. And, I just want to point out that she was an HONOR GRADUATE in high school.

Of course, I feel that it is just as much my failure as the school's for not realizing what she was missing. It's just that I trusted our school until I learned not to and, by then, it was pretty much too late for my daughter.

[DUreader]

4. kick