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elchivito · #60 02-22-2011, 07:32 PM

Thanks for the chuckles here! I especially find the simplistic equations "union teachers = nonproductive and non-union teachers = productive to be laughable. In addition comparing teachers and those who work in businesses is silly. Students have been referred to here at least once as a "product". Okay, let's say they are.
If I own a business making, say, tomato paste, and a train carload of bad tomatoes reaches my plant, I can turn it down, send it back if it doesn't meet my expectations for raw materials. If students are indeed "products" in any sense remotely close to a business model, then they must also by definition be "raw materials" when they first enter school. Can I, as the teacher ("producer", according to the logic of the silly comparison) turn away bad raw materials? In public schools, I cannot. I'm expected to make silk purses out of sow's ears.
Anyone who hasn't spent time in the classroom hasn't a clue the baggage kids come to school with these days. Broken homes, single parent homes, drugs, alcohol, joblessness, you name it. I counted myself and my students fortunate if they'd all at least come to school in the morning having had BREAKFAST that somebody cooked for them. I don't believe it ever happened. Anyone who thinks this doesn't weigh heavily on the minds of even the youngest kids in school and affect their ability to concentrate and feel good about learning is a fool.
Walk into the average 6th or 7th grade classroom and ask for a show of hands from those who have gone to the same school since kindergarten. You'll find the number frighteningly low. The lack of continuity in education is a serious, well studied detriment to success in school. Parents are the first teachers, and NO teacher can teach ANYONE ANYTHING he isn't prepared to learn and doesn't want to learn. I say this with LEARNING meaning the actual long term acquisition of knowledge and the ability to reason, not short term retention of meaningless stuff that is only retained long enough to pass some ill conceived test.
My state is a right to work state. I taught for 31 years and still consult in classrooms. I have never been a union member or for that matter even a member of the NEA, which contrary to anti union sentiment is NOT a union. I have worked with master teachers who come from both non union and union backgrounds, and have worked with slugs from the same two camps. If only it was as simple as those who'd like it be simple think it is.

Carry on.