Going Teach!

     I can't go to a party or any sort of gathering these days without hearing teachers talk about how onerous their jobs have become in recent years. 

     For one thing, they are sick of being told they work six hours a day. They know how many hours they work and it's not six per day. They have lesson plans to prepare, papers to grade, supplies to order and sort, conference to prepare for and participate in, kids to formally or informally counsel, in-service training even after they get the mandatory masters. Yes, they have summers "off," free for another job, or childcare responsibilities.

     Now, since the advent of lunatic federal regulations, they have added work: filling out meaningless evaluations that serve to kill trees but not evaluate anyone in a meaningful way. On top of they, they have less time to teach actual subject matter because they have to prepare the kids for standardized tests that measure how well they do on standardized tests. And the idiots in power want teachers to be evaluated by these tests. 

     As if this wasn't enough, there has been a slow but perceptible decline in parenting. 

     I'm not sure it it's the result of lack of skill or if parents just don't want to bother.

     Some experts trace the problem with parents back to a couple of lawsuits filed after kids got hurt on the playground. Really. As if kids didn't get hurt on the playground all the time. But apparently, the kids were badly hurt and the parents got sleazy lawyers and filed suit. So, playground were made "safer," but not as much fun. And parents started getting paranoid about kids getting hurt. As if they forgot that taking risks is a learning experience. 

     Others say the disappearance of a little kid walking to school in NYC in the early 1970s and the subsequent tsunami of publicity did the most damage. It started the myth that stranger abductions were common and increase the paranoia coefficient in parents. 

      So parents start overprotecting their kids, keeping them inside, not trusting them to go places on their own. And kids don't develop self-assurance and confidence. And they get fat. Kids need to be outside, climbing trees, getting dirty, exploring, playing non-structured games with no rules and no winners and losers. Not sitting inside staring at a screen. 

     And all of the above idiocy apparently led to the phenomenon of helicopter parenting. Parents interfering with their kids' lives on every imaginable level. 

      Part of that is parents not telling their kids they have to treat their teachers with respect. How stupid are these parents? If kids aren't taught to respect teachers, how can teachers teach?

     Which brings me to the title/headline of this blog post. Going Teach.  An acquaintace of mine speculates that a combination of meaningless paperwork and lack of respect will send teachers off the deep end, like postal workers.

    Let's hope not, but, nobody could blame them.