The villain in the Teacher's Lounge

Y'ever see that movie, Dangerous Minds? It's a good movie. It's about this teacher and how she takes these hopeless dead-end teens and convinces them to be good students and learn and better themselves.

There's lots of movies like this. Whole genre. A Super Teacher takes a bunch of hopeless losers, some of whom are violent and evil, and turns 'em into Good Students. Some of them are quite good. Some are classics -- Blackboard Jungle, anyone? To Sir, With Love?

There are so many of these movies, they have their own set of stock characters. The Inept But Well Meaning Teacher Down The Hall, the "Realistic" Principal Who's Lost Sight Of Educational Ethics, the Evil Unrepentant Punk Who Doesn't Straighten Out In The End... and my personal favorite, the Villain In The Teacher's Lounge.

Oh, yes, the Villain. He is a teacher, usually male, but not always. He invariably has many more years experience than our hero. He is a cynic, somewhat tired, but still more than able to keep doing his job. But that's all he's doing... his job.



You see, he has come to realize the TRUTH about teaching. We find this out during a scene in the teacher's lounge, in which our protagonist is railing about how hard teaching is, and how is one supposed to give these kids hope, make them believe in themselves, invest in themselves and their future?


And the Villain? He smiles and says, "You can't. You've been lied to. It is not possible for this job to be what you believe it is."


Our protagonist looks up, shocked. At this point, a debate begins. The protagonist, being noble and heroic, holds forth that EVERY child can be a winner. The Villain smiles sadly and says that the Protagonist is not being realistic. You can't save them all. You can only do what you can do, and if you push yourself too hard and too far, you'll burn out and not be able to do ANYTHING for ANY of them. Our protagonist rejects this heresy. Dammit, there has to be SOME way to SOMEHOW make this work... and sure enough, by the end of the movie, our hero is successful. All the kids rally in support. Hope is alive. The Villain has been proven wrong.

I do not know if it is because of movies like this... or because of politicians... or because teachers are supposed to be strange magical beings.... but people seem to believe this crap.

I see a lot of stereotypes about teaching; you can't escape them in education. Teachers are magic. Teachers rearrange children's worlds. Teachers are people who failed in their career fields, and now they teach instead of playing pro football or writing novels or being college professors. Teachers mostly just want to screw their hardbodied young proteges. Teachers are called to this profession by their saintliness and willingness to sacrifice their lifetimes in the interests of the Youth of Tomorrow.

Like I said, crap.

I have known many teachers. A few were the scum of the earth. A few were truly saintly people. But most of them were no better or worse than most folks -- just better educated, and just as likely to gripe and bitch and be snarlish during standardized testing week. But the public luuuuvs those stereotypes, and they won't let them go, and the politicians luuuuv to ride the teachers into office by "fixing education," and the stereotypes are most handy for that. And so sometimes I actually encounter this crap coming out of people who should know better.

Like teachers, for example.

The trope that set me off? "A REAL teacher wouldn't give up on ANY child, no matter WHAT the circumstances."

Ooooh, I felt like letting someone have it, right then. But I did not. Because I am a professional. More than that, I am a professional whose main focus lies on keeping one's temper and being patient. Admittedly, I was hired to do this with STUDENTS, not idiot adults who should know better... but, hey, that's education.

So let's kick the tropes around:

A REAL teacher wouldn't give up on ANY child, no matter WHAT the circumstances!

Every child can learn.

Every child has a right to an education.

A teacher should be a learner, and should take training and classes every year to stay current.

The school's job is not only to teach, but to socialize.

Schools must keep the kids safe.

We don't need more money for education -- we need more education for our money!

If schools are not doing well, this can be fixed by cutting their funding.

If schools are not doing well, this can be fixed by firing all the teachers and administrators.

These are just some of the major beliefs about education, and there is some truth in each of them. To regard them as absolutes, though -- as so many folks seem to -- is a towering mistake. I've tried explaining this before, only to be poo-poohed, and placed in the same bracket with the Villain in the Teacher's Lounge: "What kind of teacher are you, to have so little faith, so little hope, so little motivation? Do you have some kind of an attitude problem?"


A REAL teacher wouldn't give up on ANY child, no matter WHAT the circumstances! Crap. A REAL teacher picks his battles, and takes care of herself, because if she burns out or goes crazy trying to accomplish the improbable, this benefits no one.

Every child can learn. This is true. But not every child wants to, and some children will resist learning, and some will fight like hell for their right to ignorance, and of these, some will have parents who don't give a fart in a high wind, and some have parents who will actively assist the children in counteracting their education. I see it every year. Rotsa ruck, there, Mr. Chips.

Every child has a right to an education. Whether they want it or need it or use it or not. In other countries and other cultures, if you aren't doing jack with your education, they kick you the fuck out and let the educators concentrate on the ones who can and will. Meanwhile, our politicians measure our numbers against the Japanese (who do exactly this) and proclaim "something is wrong with education! Elect me, so I can fix it!" And the cycle begins anew. We can't do what the Japanese do, of course. It ain't democratic. We have to force ALL our kids to be rocket scientists. Or try, anyway.

A teacher should be a learner, and should take training and classes every year to stay current. At their own expense, it seems. And while I'm out learning all the newest trends in education, who's gonna teach my damn classes?

The school's job is not only to teach, but to socialize. And if parents were truly held accountable for this, the school could do their end quite effectively.

Schools must keep the kids safe. I agree with this, mostly. However, schools are not jails, nor are they bunkers. Their job is to educate kids. The more extra jobs we stick in there, the less effective the education part will be. Where does the accountability begin and end? Keep 'em safe from what? Each other? Pedophile teachers? Random loonies on the streets?

We don't need more money for education -- we need more education for our money! Whenever I hear some kind of cockeyed politician buzzphrase like this, I think, "Education's too important to be left in the hands of politicians."

If schools are not doing well, this can be fixed by cutting their funding. Y'know what? You can't punish an organization. You can't. You can punish individuals, but an organization will simply disintegrate into its components if you hit it too hard. You'd think the recent financial institution disasters would have taught the politicians this. And yet they seem to think that if you treat an institution like a person, it will react like a person. I can treat my hamster like a rocket scientist, but I don't think it'll be taking over the world anytime soon. When has any expensive situation ever benefited from having money taken away from it? And how has this improved anything?

If schools are not doing well, this can be fixed by firing all the teachers and administrators. See above -- if you fire all the personnel, they will run out and find new jobs, and then you will have a whole new school with all new people... who are brand new and will take a year or two to get the ball rolling... and may not be any better than the old ones... particularly when the problem wasn't the teachers or administrators to begin with! Empty headed thinking from politicians, again. ALL PROBLEMS DO NOT HAVE SIMPLE SOLUTIONS, ASSHEADS! Except, of course, if you are selling a product or running for office.

Let's try some different tropes:

"If you were a real doctor, none of your patients would die. Real doctors never give up. From now on, when your patients die, you will not be paid for your work on those particular patients. If more than a certain number of your patients die, your hospital will be shut down while the state fires all the doctors and nurses and replaces them with new ones."

"If you were a real soldier, none of your enemies would survive, and all your battles would be victories, because real soldiers never give up. From now on, if you lose a battle, you will not be paid -- oh, wait, soldiers already get the crappiest pay there is. From now on, if you lose a battle, you will not be permitted to leave the service or go home until that battle has been refought and won properly."

"If you were a real cop, all criminals would be arrested, jailed, tried, convicted, and imprisoned, because real cops never give up, never make mistakes, and always find the one piece of evidence that will put the crook away. From now on, failure to arrest all criminals and solve all crimes will result in cutting of your pay. Further failure will result in the firing of all law enforcement in the area, and their replacement with new cops who don't know the area, the people, the local hangouts, or much of anything, because this will improve things."

"If you were a real politician, all social problems would be solved, and there would be no crime. Real leaders always solve all problems with simple answers. From now on, any crime or social problems in your bailiwick will result in loss of tax revenue, requiring you to do more with less as penance. Continued failure will result in your impeachment and replacement by a politician from the other political party."

Does it sound like crap to you? Then why are we inflicting it on the teachers?

On a completely unrelated note, you know what happens when you go on Google Images to get pictures by using words like "teachers?"
...you get an AMAZING amount of porn! I wonder if this is part of the problem?

Madness Incarnate

I am a behavior teacher. I teach behavior, and I manage behavior. If a child in the public school system is just too &%$#@ psycho to be able to handle regular classes, they send this child to me. As a generalist, I am qualified to teach the child math, English, reading, science, and social studies, and any electives they think he needs.



Some children really are insane, and cannot benefit from public school. Others simply don't give a shit. A few children really, honestly, are evil incarnate.




The parents are sometimes to blame for this, except when they aren't.


The kind of parents I deal with often can't or won't institutionalize them, demanding their rights as taxpayers to eight hours of daily day care. Sometimes, they even get lawyery, demanding that their psychotic little snowflake pass all standardized tests, or they're going to sue the school district, and they don't CARE if he's shrieking like a banshee during a lesson, eating the textbooks and trying to stab the child next to them!









HE'S BROKEN! FIX HIM! FIX HIM NOW! WE HAVE RIGHTS!



I get these sometimes. They usually don't last long. Sooner or later, the child in question self-destruct, either breaking a law or doing something dangerous enough that we can throw them out, countersue, THREATEN to countersue, get them arrested, or otherwise force the parent to clean up his own mess, rather than simply dumping it in public education's lap. That's what it is, you know -- education. Nothing more, nothing less. There are nearly no provisions for psychotherapy, physical restraint, medications, and other requirements of the severely mentally ill.
















In the meantime, there's me: the last line of defense for the classroom teacher and the student body, against the rights of the crazy, the abused, and the severely fucked up. I do the best I can. I often succeed. But I'm not a shrink, and I'm not a mental hospital, and occasionally I get one who's more than I can handle. When that happens, I do the best I can until the kid self-destructs... and then I and my other students breathe a sigh of relief.



This brings me to something I read recently about Orly Taitz. Some of you might recognize this person as the woman who will not be convinced that Barack Obama was born an American citizen, and therefore intends to go down fighting for her right for him not to be President of the United States.





When I first heard of her, I thought, "Wow. Here's someone really determined to stand up for what she believes in." The more I learned about her, though -- particularly after several TV appearances -- the more I found my opinion changing to "Wow. This person is batshit crazy."


It probably began when on a TV news show, she made it pretty clear that it was NOT POSSIBLE to prove that Obama was an American. Simply not possible. Nope, don't care what evidence you provide, I can and will reject it. Nope, nope, nope. There is no evidence that will convince me. Don't care what it is, don't care where it came from, I DON'T BELIEVE IT, AND THAT SETTLES IT.

In fact, aside from the lack of screeching and general verbal ugliness, she kind of reminded me of some of my less sane parents.

Yet she was out there, practicing law and doing her damndest to get Obama... um... I dunno. Impeached? Deported? Unpresidented? I don't quite know what we'd do if everyone decided to humor her...

Well, apparently, those days are over; someone has moved to have her disbarred. Apparently, whatever passes for the law in California is tired of the crazy woman, particularly after she tried to have a judge brought up on treason charges after he found against her in one of her recent cases.


It made me think of another crazy lawyer, one Jack Thompson. This guy spent YEARS trying to bring down the outfit that makes "Grand Theft Auto," insisting that there was a very real connection between violent video games and real-life violent behavior. The fact that no one but him could find it made no difference; he had a mission, and by Ghod, he was going to carry it out... even to the point of suing those with whom he disagreed, if they dared disagree with him publicly.

Sure enough, after the better part of a decade of harassing judges, suing journalists and private citizens, tying up the legal system, paralyzing courts, and singlehandedly attempting to somehow grab reality by the balls and force it to do his bidding by sheer virtue of his mighty lawyerly powers...

...he got disbarred.

Mm-hm. Two people who followed their madness and tried to lawyer the world into doing it all their way. Two people who... for all practical purposes... self-destructed.

It makes me wonder: is this a particular KIND of madness? Is this some sort of bizarre evolutionary development that keeps the seriously-insane-yet-able-to-exert-power-via-the-system from overpowering said system? The habit the seriously nuts have of self destructing?

And how long until Glenn Beck does it? I'm really getting tired of him.