Thursday, April 12, 2018

The Sadly Truth About Many Teachers

In the past couple of months, the have been strikes by teachers in West Virginia and Oklahoma, with those in Oklahoma still on strike after getting a $6000 raise.  Teachers in several other states are now threatening to go on strike.
I am a retired teacher who worked with the most severely disabled students. I worked in 3 states (Wisconsin,  Nevada and Arizona) and in large school districts (Milwaukee and Las Vegas) medium size  (Kingman and Lake Havasu, Az) and rural-Westfield,Wi.. I also did student teaching and volunteered at several schools including schools on Indian reservations and urban. Over my 20+ years I have met thousands and thousands of teachers, administrators and other school personnel.
So, here are some unless truths about many teachers:
1. No teacher is forced to work at any school district.
2. Teachers, especially now, can transfer from state to state with very few restrictions.  Most licenses can transfer between states and they would only take a class or two to get a full teaching license and you usually get 3 years to finish the classes.
3. Almost all teachers sign contracts telling them how much money they will make.
4. Many teachers won't make it in the private sector.  The exception would be specialist teachers like shop, military/first responders and teachers who actually worked full time in private sector for most of their adult life. I spent 16 years working in special education before becoming a teacher.
5. Many teachers are liberals.
6. Many teachers feel entitled.  See #5... enough said.
7. Many, if not most teachers a greedy.  If there is something free, there is a swarm with body slamming to get it, even if it is just pencils.
8. Free food, watch out.  Schools, especially elementary schools, get free from parents. When it is put out in the teachers lounge or office, watch out as it looks like pigs eating at the trough.
9. Many teachers are pigs. They depend on custodians cleaning their classrooms and teacher lounges and they leave the rooms and lounges in bad shape and then have others clean up after themselves.
10. Many teachers are really nasty. The sexual jokes, use of vulgar and racist language mocking students when in the office, lounge and in meetings is rampant. The mocking includes what a student looks like, behaves, smells, intelligence and other categories.

I have witnessed physical and verbal abuse of students by teachers no one was ever punished because administrators don't want investigations because it will make them look bad.

So, there are some ugly truths about teachers. Most are not the saints they pretend to be.

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