The blame game is interesting.
It seems that the only thing people can agree on is that our educational system is broken.
Waiting for superman blames the teachers unions. Teachers are being rewarded for basically not leaving. They get seniority they get paid more. I see this. I have two bachelor's degrees, A terminal Master's degree, and have take extra classes after that. I currently earn four dollars more a year than someone with one bachelor's degree.
Some teachers blame parents. They don't get involved.
Some teachers blame their own education which has left them clueless as to how to deal with actual human beings.
Some teacher's blame the system that won't just let them teach the way they want to teach.
Now, I do know that some complaints are coming from people who really don't want an education system at all. They think that all schools should be private schools. I know that they will come up with any excuse ever to blame everyone. The only excuse they won't use is that we need to dump more money into the system. Other than that, they are open to the blame game.
I also know that just because people have different motives that it doesn't negate their assessments.
I am just wondering what this all means. Is the system like my old ford tempo that was just done for? There were too many things wrong with it to just fix. Should we just scrap the whole system and start over?
Or is the answer in the charter school system where not everything is set by some governing body?
I have no idea. I'm tired.
I haven't seen this movie, but from the buzz surrounding it I gather that it is blaming bad teachers and teacher unions for the problems in the country's educational system. To me, that's like blaming every homeless person for being homeless. I've worked in a profession where I had lots of contact with homeless people and from my experiences, many homeless people are that way because they have no other option; the system is wack and they don't have the support they need. I think that the same can be said for the educational system--it's wack. To say that teachers are the main problem is ignoring the fact that the whole situation needs fixing. Teachers are just the scapegoat for a society that wants somebody ELSE to blame.
ReplyDeleteLeonard, I really liked this phlog. I haven't seen the movie yet but I have seen previews, I think its easy to place blame on others. Questions if you could change one thing in the system what would it be? Would you change all schools to charter schools? I wonder if starting new is the answer...how would we make it different?
ReplyDeleteLeonard, I enjoyed what you have to say this week. I haven't seen the movie yet. The blame game seem to be a popular game played with our educational system. I like Meghan's idea of starting over, but that could be a lengthy process that many would disagree about. We attempt to fix the system, but have our fixes have seemed to make our system more complex than it already was. We definitely need to dump more money into education but do we no? and what do we just place blame instead.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, there’s reward in staying in jobs too long. As in your example, so does it happen in other areas of the workforce. Ideally, we could manage in all the good candidates and manage out the bad. It takes a dedicated individual to stand up and speak out for what is going on in the classroom, but like in any other job, that can be viewed by management or administration, as insubordinate and grounds for reprimanding. Changes have to occur in leadership positions. Otherwise, like the old beat up tempo, the system will break.
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