They All Suck
Educrats
- For passing spineless, compromised legislation that helps no one
- For watering down standards to make their states look good
- For knuckling under to the so-called grown-ups rather than advocating for the kids
Academics
- For having their heads permanently shoved up their asses
- For publishing esoteric essays and books that help no one
- For advocating new approaches and new programs without a shred of anything that anyone outside of Education would call scientific data
- For constructing teacher education programs that do not give teachers any of the skills or knowledge they need to teach children
Publishers
- For sniffing around starving schools and districts for just one more dollar
- For publishing politically-correct pabulum instead of the often unpleasant truth
- For jamming textbooks with too many colors, sidebars, boxes, and pictures, exacerbating our attention-span problem even further
- For bullying teachers into thinking that textbooks are curriculum
Administrators
- For knowing nothing
- For doing nothing
- For supporting no one
- For presiding over petty fiefdoms and police states instead of communities of learners
Teachers
- For not knowing their content
- For not knowing how to teach
- For obsessing over coverage
- For obsessing over their union contract
- For resisiting change
- For believing themselves unaccountable to anyone beyond themselves
- For thinking they always know best
Students
- For thinking that education is something that just happens to them
- For blithely assuming everything will be fine, regardless of what they do or don't learn
- For refusing to do their work
- For making it impossible for anyone else do their work
They're All Saints
Educrats
- For trying to find ways to create accountability where none has ever existed
- For trying to make change in a political environment in which they are constantly compromised
Academics
- For refusing to accept that "what was good enough for your father and me" has any pedagogical validity
- For showing us how brains really work and how people really learn
- For being models of the kinds of restless and inquisitive minds we hope to cultivate in our students
Publishers
- For bringing tremendous amounts of talent and resources to the task of helping students
- For always trying to do things better
- For giving us options
Administrators
- For being willing to run the asylum
- For trying to create environments conducive to learning
- For putting themselves in the crosshairs every day
- For mediating among teacher unions, custodian unions, parents, politicians, and lunatic children
Teachers
- For doing the job
- For doing their best
- For spending their days with our children
- For grasping at teachable moments, whenever they appear
- For struggling on against all odds
Students
- For trusting that it matters
- For giving it a good try, even when they have doubts
- For shrugging off the idiots and staying focused on what's important
- For navigating an increasingly carnivorous culture and trying, somehow, to grow up sane
No comments:
Post a Comment