A Teacher's Tale

     I've been a teacher for over three decades.  Let me state that the American Education System is okay.  The world is not divided by good and evil; rather it is divided by smart and stupid.  It doesn’t matter how many people you give a quality education to, it’s always the ignorant people who get the world in trouble. If most of the entire world was greatly educated, it would still have to deal with the few ignorant dumb-asses who will always demand to be heard!  However, the really stupid people are not just the dim-witted, lazy simpletons in today’s classroom. From my experience with parents, they are the really ignorant, spoiled people in today’s society. The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree, or as my father used to say, “The turd doesn’t fall too far from the dog’s ass!” My father, a brutally honest man who coached and taught school for forty years and didn’t care what he said to parents and others, lived in a much better and a much simpler time.  You used to be able to say what you really thought without having to be politically correct. Hurting someone’s feelings or hurting someone’s self-esteem was not a reason to lose one’s job or to have a lawsuit slapped on you. My father used to say, “Your kid may be an honor-roll student, but you’re still a dummy!” He would also give a simple answer to questions about why a parent’s son or daughter wasn’t doing well in class.  He would answer the parent’s inquiry with a simple: “It either one of two things. He is either lazy or it is genetics.” If I said any of those things to anyone today, I would be in a world of trouble.  Instead, I have to say something different and comforting to the “concerned” parents.  I say “concerned” parents even though the parents haven’t been involved in their kid’s schoolwork until the end of the semester, when it is numerically too damn late to pull up the grade to a passing grade.  In my mind I’m thinking, “Where were you for the last six months?  Why haven’t you responded to any of my communications and other grade reports?  Why are you so concerned now that it is too late?  Like my dad said, it’s easy to see where your kid gets his work habits and work ethics.  You just want me to pass him, or you just want me to give him the grade that you wish for him to have.  You don’t care if he actually learned anything.  You just want a solid passing grade.”  However, I instead have to say, “We have to find a way to motivate him to have success in class. It’s late in the school year, I know, but if he applies himself and comes by for extra help, he can really turn things around.”  I say this on a daily basis as I choke back the bile that is rising in the back of my throat.  I say these things because I know that the school administration and the school board and, especially, our elected officials don’t want anyone to fail a class, even if the student really does deserve an “F” for the class.  People in charge of education have the idealized notion that every single child in the United States MUST ATTEND and graduate from a four-year college. I’m sorry, but there are some kids who should set their sights on, maybe one day, becoming a night manager at McDonald’s.  That is as far as some kids can possibly go.  The reason our education system is so fucked up is because everyone, including us teachers, doesn’t want to deal with the hassle of anyone failing.  It is actually harder and requires more paperwork to fail a student than it is to pass one.  It is much more work for a teacher to fail a student as opposed to passing a student.  That sounds ridiculous, but a teacher now has to prove that a student actually did not do his/her work and actually deserved to fail. Excessive absences, tardies, and work not completed or attempted are forgiven. The teacher has to also prove that he/she has done everything humanly possible to “reach the student.”  So it is actually easier to just pass the student who did not do the work required to pass.  Ethics, honor, and any principles that a dedicated young teacher has are very quickly replaced by a sense of “just take the path of least resistance.” 

      I wanted to grow up to be rich, famous, well-respected, and a babe-magnet. So I became a public school teacher. Wise choice, huh? (Hey, I never said that I was very smart!) So while I’m on the subject of ignorant people, my hypocritical, eunuch douche-bag of a boss has recently begun adding quotes at the bottom of his daily work e-mails. He is one of those people who are happy to accept all the credit and pass all the blame. One of his favorite quotes is, “It’s amazing what can be accomplished when no one cares who gets the credit.”  I have noticed that a lot of people in authority love to quote that line.  It’s supposed to be a self-sacrificing, team-building quote.  However, the line actually translates to: “I want and expect a lot of people to anonymously work to better my reputation and career in order for me, and me alone, to look good because I’m going to be the only one who takes all the credit, anyway.”   I have also learned that these authority figures are the same ones who are so very quick to turn on you and assign blame to you to deflect any of their involvement in anything that doesn’t make them look good.  They love for the little people to work anonymously to help better their own careers and their own reputations. However, they are also the first to quickly turn on those same anonymous little people at the first sign of anything that is not advantageous to them. (At least they are consistent; they won’t share the credit when something good happens, and they sure as hell won’t share in any blame when something bad happens.)  Just once I would like to see someone in authority have the balls to say, “It’s amazing what can be accomplished when no one cares who gets the blame.” Or better yet, “It’s amazing what can be accomplished when I take all of the God damn blame!” (See if that doesn’t boost worker morale!)

      I finally figured out the secret to being a successful (happy, stress-free) teacher. I used to have an assistant principal who would constantly say, “Do what is best for the kids.” However, he never really meant it. What he really meant was, “Do what is easiest for the administration.” If you do that, you’ll keep the parents, students, and administration off your back (maybe).