MadTeach got its name because I used to teach in Madison, WI, and that used to make me pretty mad...now I teach in a large city... totally different scene... but I'm keeping the name. :-)
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Why do people assume that teaching is so easy? So many people, trying (I know) to be encouraging, say things like, 'you're such a nice (or other positive adjective) person, I just know you're a great teacher.'
posted by birdfarm @ 11:34 PM
John Taylor Gatto explains the origins of the US school system:
"The Prussian mind...held a clear idea of what centralized schooling should deliver: 1) Obedient soldiers to the army; 2) Obedient workers for mines, factories, and farms; 3) Well-subordinated civil servants, trained in their function; 4) Well-subordinated clerks for industry; 5) Citizens who thought alike on most issues; 6) National uniformity in thought, word, and deed.
"The area of individual volition for commoners was severely foreclosed by Prussian psychological training procedures drawn from the experience of animal husbandry and equestrian training, and also taken from past military experience.
"Prussian schools delivered everything they promised. Every important matter could now be confidently worked out in advance by leading families and institutional heads because well-schooled masses would concur with a minimum of opposition."
--John Taylor Gatto
"The Underground History of American Education"
Chapter Seven
I'm a new teacher (social studies 6-12), committed to anti-racist, multicultural, and fully inclusive education; also a traveller, materialist historian, political activist, former grad student, and occasional gardener.
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1 Comments:
I see the point, and yet, I could play devil's advocate, for someone who would make an argument like this actually KNOWING you, as opposed to someone who only knows you socially (who would make a comment like this): it's not assuming teaching is easy, rather, even in the case of a doc, too, "bedside manner" matters a lot, whether in a classroom or alongside a dying person, so it *does* count for something. Though, certainly, as you point out, not much in the end. Not all. More like something that counts more if it is absent, as opposed to something that is noticed if present. And you've certainly run up against your difficulties being "the nice you" being "nice" on this job!
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