I really appreciate the way John Stewart talks about teachers, so I'm attaching a link below to an entire episode of The Daily Show on hulu (hopefully it works--if not, I included the episode info so you can google it or search in hulu for it). I'd really appreciate it if you took 20 minutes of your time to watch what he has to say. His guest is author of The Life and Death of the Great American School System, Diane Ravitch, who discusses the education system in America and other countries.
This episode in particular gives me hope that there are people in this country still willing to fight for true education. That there are people who see beyond the superficial statistics and get at the real root of the problem. I don't hear many people right now with good things to say about teachers-- I find myself wondering nearly every day When did we become the bad guys?. I've been feeling frustrated, broken hearted and just generally low because of the way I hear the public and public officials talk about teachers. It's hard enough to stay positive when things are going well with teaching, but when it feels like everyone thinks you're evil or that you're greedy or that what you do can be easily replaced -- it makes me want to crawl into a hole and never come out. Actually it makes me want to move to FInland (you'll see why on the episode).
I haven't been running much lately, which is probably why my resistance to it all is down a bit...and when my skin is thinner like now, it's hard to get out on the road which makes the skin even thinner...vicious cycle, but it's people like Stewart and Ravitch who renew my hope that one day teaching will be a respected profession once again. Please watch:
The Daily Show with John Stewart, Thursday March 3, Season 16, Episode 32
teachers rock. Now get out and run!
There are a lot of misconceptions about every profession, but it does seem like public school teachers are really taking it on the chin right now. My daughter's also discouraged.