After sitting, listening
and questioning many of our Flint area schoolteachers, I have come to this
conclusion. Teachers want to go back to the old days where they did what they
were “created” to do: TEACH!
Problems of the near past:
School Administrators, Principles, and “Specialty” teachers have been, for the
most part (Not all!) made-up of persons that are poor teachers! These folks, in
the old days, once within the school system, were moved into these positions
due to their inept, classroom-teaching abilities. Shocking! Not at all, once
you take into consideration a Union that protects Teacher’s employment rights
to the point of inhibiting good administrators’ ability to remove talentless
teachers. (Unions are meant to help the people AND the SYSTEM they represent!)
Today:
Inept administrators
insolate their inability to make correct management decisions by surrounding
themselves (Nepotism) with personal allies that cover their butts and confuse
the line of blame for poor decision-making. Many of those folks have secured
outrageously high pay-packages. (See Flint area school superintendent Linda
Thompson and her addition of twenty-some underlings.)
Principles: (again, not
all!) Find themselves worn out, burned out and just willing to let the needed, tough
decision on discipline of students, of teachers, and yes, even parents to go
unaddressed by just placating everyone. Due in no small part to their being
placed, in a position that needs more talent and skills than even a classroom
teacher has!
“Specialty” Teachers:
(again, not all!) as our school system takes in more and more “Troubled”
students (More on this later) teachers are leaning more and more on those
“Specialty” teachers. These “Troubled” students need special one on one (or
small group) attention. These students are so far behind the others in the
classroom that their lower skill level detracts from the education of others. Consequently,
they’re sent off to “Specialty” teachers. Here’s the report on many of those
“Specialty” teachers. For so long “Poor” teachers have infiltrated, “Specialty”
teachers, that now classroom teachers are screaming that some of these
(federally funded) crappy “Specialty” teachers are not doing their job!
Surprise!
Want to hear the inside
scoop? Not only are those crummy “Specialty” teachers holding their jobs
because of the Unions, but also because they’ve become the allies of the
School’s Principle. That’s right! Did you know that most schools in Flint, no
longer have Vice-Principles? (yet, the schools’ superintendant has added jobs
to her administration!) Who does the Vice-Principles day to day job? The
“Specialty” teachers! So now, you have inept, protected, one-time classroom
teachers, that are even more inept as “Specialty” teachers, helping an inept
school Principle and not doing their designated job! Happy days! And you
wondered what’s wrong with our schools.
Troubled Students: Today’s
teachers long for the old days when a “Troubled” student meant a kid that was a
bit rebellious, maybe even bored in the classroom due to their higher abilities
or creative method of thinking. Calling a kid “Troubled” in our schools today
is like calling Kadhafi a “Troubled” Dictator!
Today’s “Troubled”
students are children living through the most awful environment of both nurture
and nature! Let me just list a few of the problems these “Troubled” students
live with: poverty, sexual abuse, drug addicted parents, mentally ill parents
that should be on drugs, neighborhood gun battles, dead bodies found on their
street, homelessness, murdered relatives, gang involvement, hiding in the
bathtub as shots are fired into their homes, and the constant moving from one
school district to another. I can’t go on, no wonder they’re “Troubled”, it breaks
my heart to list just a few of these reasons, but every teacher in our city
schools’ hear and live with these heart-wrenching stories, EVERYDAY!
Should I end this with
some positive notes? I can. There are, for the most part, good and caring School
Administrators, Principles and Specialty Teachers in our City, but they’re
feeling overwhelmed. How would you feel if you had to work in this kind of
environment that just a few “Troubled” people have created? Wouldn’t you quit?
I use to laugh at Mrs.
Clinton’s idea that “It takes a Village.” Not anymore. We each have to get
personally involved and fix things, it's not just about your own children, it’s
about all our children. Let’s help our “True” teachers do what they were “created”
to do. TEACH!
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