Thursday, January 10, 2008 5:28 AM
by
jtspencer
don't tell me how to teach
"Teachers are usually just lazy. They get tons of vacation and don't even have to put in a full work day," remarks my brother's friend. He's an arrogant fire-fighter; the type of lazy jock who never had to do work in school because he had a hell of an arm on the baseball field. He breezed through college and by sheer nepotism landed a fire fighting position.
Another woman chimed in, "I think a lot of them work hard. It's just that they aren't teaching right. They need to scrap this self-esteem crap and just stick to the basics."
The dialogue continues and I check out, knowing that I'm trapped. If I defend my vocation, it reeks of self-preservation. Yet it's too taboo to attack the holy profession of fire fighters. I could say, "A few minutes ago you were bragging about how you spend your days watching t.v., lifting weights and playing ping pong. Who's lazy?"
Another woman starts talking about how kids don't know how to use math. I ask her what she does for a living. "I'm a CPA," she explains.
"How about this? I won't tell you what to do with spreadsheets and you don't tell me how to teach." It was rude, I realize, and I had to backtrack and apologize.
Yet, I do find it interesting that anyone has a "right" to decide best teaching practices. Politicians, who have never taught a single class can make blanket statements about "accountability." Pundits publish editorials decrying the state of public schools when they have never examined the data themselves. Parents assume that, because they pay my salary they can tell me to ease up on the homework or stop "wasting time" using multiple intelligences and stick to the basics.
The reality is that this is a big part of our culture. I remember in church hearing people with no musical background tell the music minister how to direct the choir. On a larger scale, beauracrats in HMOs tell doctors how to practice medicine. Home owners who have seen too many episodes of "This Old House" assume they can remodel on their own, or at least tell a general contractor what to do. Oprah is now a self-proclaimed literary critic, endorsing books that become best sellers. Hollywood actors give political speeches. A president who makes up words on a regular basis has permission to comment on the state of education in America. Al Gore, who has no formal education in science wins a Nobel Peace Prize for creating a documentary (powerpoint presentation) about global warming.