Would You Fire This Teacher?

I’m sure you would fire him, but don’t get disappointed when he’s not. It’s nearly impossible for teachers to get fired in California.

In the last ten years, only 91 teachers out of about 300,000 (.003 percent) who have attained permanence lost their jobs in California. Of those, only 19 (.0007 percent) have been dismissed for poor performance.

You’re telling me that out of 300,00 teachers, only TWO a year are fired for poor performance? Imagine how bad these two must be. And imagine how many other bad teachers never get fired.

Never forget, LA Unified had to pay $40,000 TO THE TEACHER who fed spoonfuls of his semen to 3rd graders. The district had to pay HIM to go away.

Which is why I predict this guy get a promotion. It’s easier for districts to promote bad teachers into the district office than it is to fire them

***UPDATE: He’s been placed on administrative leave TWICE before. ***

I’m sure by now you’ve seen this:

A couple of things, first, the language.

You may say, “This is how kids talk these days. It’s important to relate to them and speak their language.” Nope. It’s important to be a ROLE model and set an example for HOW kids should talk and behave, not to sink down to their level in this effort to relate. Because you’re not relating, you look like a fool who is trying too hard.

Ben Sasse’s book “The Vanishing American Adult” [which I link to all the time and is on sale] write about how one of the main goals of the modern public school system- developed around 1900 by John Dewey – was to transform the center of the kids social universe. For all of history, the center of a kids life is the home, Most of their interaction was with their parents or other adults and this gave them a constant source of aspiration; a vision of the man or woman they WANT to grow up to become. The public school made the SCHOOL the social center of the kids’ life. And not only that, but the school became the place where kids, for the first time ever, looked for advice and insight and wisdom…from other kids.

When you have 16 year olds guiding other 16 year olds through the trials and tribulations of life, it’s not going to go well. You need ADULTS to help guide kids into adulthood.

Teachers shouldn’t swear. They shouldn’t “talk the kids language” because their goal isn’t to be a kid. The goal should be to help the kids become adults. YOU be the model. You be the adult; not a grown up 16 year old.

And if you’re going to swear and make pathetic arguments like, “[Marines are] not like, high-level thinkers.” Don’t be surprised when your students write a report, “Like, Geoge Washington was like mean.”

Back to the main point, remember in 2006 when Senator John Kerry said, ‘”You make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”

This man went on to become the Secretary of State! (That doesn’t sounds like a slip of the tongue, does it?)

This is the same elitist perspective on the military: that they’re a bunch of uneducated, desperate losers. If they were “smart like me” then they would go to college!

It’s not even worth the time to rebuke his premise, we can sit here all day and point out people we know in the military who are brilliant and who didn’t join as a last resort, but joined because they know that there are things in life worth fighting for. And this country and the VALUES we believe in this country is one of those things.

John Stuart Mill said,

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse… A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

This teacher is kept free by men BETTER THAN HIMSELF!

There is a confusion between education and schooling. This teacher is only focused on SCHOOLING, “Go to college! Get more schooling.” But joining the military gives you an education. Education is life experience.

IT’s like the scene from Good Will Hunting, when Robin Williams character tells Matt Damon: [LANGUAGE WARNING]

When you get a lot of schooling, you tend to look down on people who don’t have as much as you. Yyou tend to get closed minded. When you have an education, you have more perspective and empathy. And you can smell ignorance from a mile away.

I’ll end here, one fo the schools in the district is Obregon. It’s K-12 and named after Eugene Obregon. Eugene was born in LA, joined the marines at 17 and deployed to Korea during the Korean War.

Obregon was an ammunition carrier for a machine gun squad. During one battle, he saw one of his fellow marines shot and fall into the line of fire. With only his pistol, he ran out to grab him. He gabbed him with one arm and began pulling him back, firing with his other arm. They made it to cover and Eugene stated bandaging the man up. The enemy approached. Eugene took the guy’s rifle, and while shielding him, started firing at the approaching enemy! He was shot and killed. The man he rescued survived, recovered and stayed in the military in honor fo the man ho saved his life.

This school is named after this medal of honor recipient. I would argue to this teacher that schooling is fine. You can read some books and learn some things. But you can’t learn certain aspects of life unless you’re in situations like that.

Not all of us could handle a moment like that. I’m glad some of us can.