EducationNation: I Should Have Known Better...

[YvonneCa]

...by Stephen Lazar


http://stephenlazar.com/blog/2010/09/education-nation-i-should-have-known-better/comment-page-1/#comment-806

[Iris]

1. teachers should "work until the job is done" - what the hell is that supposed to mean?

Learning is a process and it's lifelong. Maybe we should create robots who can teach?

Interesting post. Thanks for sharing.

[LWolf]

6. It means we don't go home.

We don't have a contractual day with set hours.

[Iris]

8. yep - don't go home ever. Have no life. A great way to be productive!

<sarcasm>

[LWolf]

9. We'll all be relocated to "teachers villages"

like the one in Newark, so we can be close and accessible 24/7.

[madfloridian]

2. He never got a chance to respond though Brian Williams kept promising.

"Our first interaction with Brian Williams was when we walked out on stage. He introduced us, getting my subject wrong, and the program began. All three of us used our first opportunity to speak to lay the ground for key points we assumed we would discuss later. The next thing we knew, they were going to the audience. During the commercial break, I asked Williams if we would have a chance to respond to the audience, and he said we would. He came back to me with the next question, and then before we knew it, we were being ushered off stage. That was it. Not a single chance for any of us to respond to each other or share anything of real substance with the audience or the nation. As the event continued — and it got eaten up by rapid-fire comments from the audience in which everyone just tried to get their voice heard without really listening or responding to each other — the nine of us realized that we had just been pawns for the news media that have little interest in intelligent discourse, the very discourse that teachers teach their students and partake in everyday. I should have known better.

I figured that was the end of my experience, but I got a call Sunday night to go be a part of the “expert” panel on teacher recruitment, retention, and evaluation. I was not invited to be on the panel, but was told I would be in the first row and would have the chance to respond. Since I could attend without missing a class and it was on my way home anyway, I agreed to attend. After the Town Hall, I had low expectations, but I thought I would at least have a chance to speak up for the support and training new teachers need to be successful. I should have known better."

That is shocking.

This deserves a kick and rec.

[YvonneCa]

5. I was both watching when this teacher was on and...

...participating in the online chat. I think it is interesting that they said they had over 6000 teachers online and were over 8000 comments midway. They have yet...so far as I am aware...to publish those comments.
Rehema Ellis was asked several times about that and said they would be trying to find a way to make them available..

[madfloridian]

3. "sacrificed dignity to be NBC's pawn"

"I might have sacrificed some dignity to be NBC’s pawn and a good proportion of what little innocence I had left, but it was good for my students, which at the end of the day, is all that matters."


He should have been treated with the dignity he deserved from the start.

[gratuitous]

4. If NBC had wanted his input

They would have told him what to say.

I still think we need to convene Communication Nation, wherein a bunch of people who aren't in broadcasting get together to dictate the terms whereby the networks get to keep using the public airwaves. See, we wouldn't have any quote experts unquote or anyone with any quote expertise unquote or quote experience unquote so that we can present a fresh, unvarnished look at the networks and the so-called "job" they do of providing programming and information. And then we'd present a list of improvements that the networks should adopt immediately or we'll all go to their headquarters and mercilessly taunt them.

[MadHound]

7. Just another sign that this whole "national conversation about education" is nothing but a ruse

One contrived in order to push an anti-public school agenda.