Teachers or Roadkill?

[Are_grits_groceries]

Teachers: 

Before the strike by Chicago teachers the screeds we heard consisted of many noxious phrases:
1-Anybody can do what teachers do
2-Teachers are just babysitters.
3-My kids don't learn anything and are being ruined.
4-Just fire them all and hire new teachers.
There are many more.

After the strike by Chicago teachers the screeds consist of different phrases:
1-They can't be replaced.
2-My kids are being ruined because they aren't in class learning.
3-Why can't other city workers fill in?
There are many more.

The teachers have been trying to negotiate with Rahm.  Rahm is going to do his best to get over on the teachers in any way he can. He will tout what the teachers are being given while not mentioning other areas where items are being taken away. Rahm wants to win AT ALL COSTS. If that means that students run riot in the streets until he gets his way, so be it.

The teachers don't trust Rahm and with good reason. He makes Machiavelli look like a beginner. Teachers strike as a very last resort. Teachers, of all people, do realize what empty classrooms mean. However, most people don't care until they are actually empty.

There is this dichotomy as seen at the beginning. Teachers are maligned until they are gone. Then they are vital to the very correct workings of the universe. 

Making their real value known by taking it away is the only power they have. Otherwise they remain part of the scenery and are taken for granted and pushed around.

Do you have better ideas about how teachers can make people take them seriously? Every manner of action short of striking has been tried. However, when the rubber meets the road, the only way that teachers can get anything they need or have good reason to ask for is to get out of the way. Teachers are tired of being roadkill.

[Tansy_Gold]

1. Well said. n/t

[Lifelong Protester]

2. This is what I have been thinking, this part of your text:

There is this dichotomy as seen at the beginning. Teachers are maligned until they are gone. Then they are vital to the very correct workings of the universe.

Making their real value known by taking it away is the only power they have. Otherwise they remain part of the scenery and are taken for granted and pushed around.

While teachers are working, they are 'leeches' and 'low life', 'over paid', responsible for all of society's ills.

But once they are gone, the tune of the public is changed.

I agree, that striking, unfortunately, is the only power they have.

[gkhouston]

3. "3-Why can't other city workers fill in?"

Sometimes I teach Sunday school. You couldn't pay me enough to want to be a teacher. I'd lose it before the first week was over.

[Are_grits_groceries]

5. I think classroom management is an overlooked vital skill.

If someone knows their subject bck and forth, it doesn't matter if they can't control the students. I don't know why more new teachers don't just walk out of the classroom and get an easier job herding cats.

I believe that every teacher to be should have to substitute for a semester. I did that when I was on break from college.

Believe me, you learn every trick in the book. Even good students are prone to be less than stellar. This would give them real experience in dealing with all manner of students and situations. It would also fill a real need that schools have.

If they are going to be thrown in to sink or swim, throw them in where they can learn and afford to make a mistake. I think substituting is harder in some ways. Aspiring teachers will either adapt and learn or run shrieking down the halls. (or maybe both)

[Heather MC]

4. I am for the Teacher their cause is a just and honorable one

and it's the students who will benefit in the end WHEN they win this.

I notice President Obama is silent on this one, in 2007 he said he would walk the picket lines with you.

I wonder what side he will show up on now that it's his friend who is at the center of this. If he comes out and says this is a local issue I will be very disappointed in him.

I hope the students understand the fight is for them and about them.

[iemitsu]

7. obama is not on the side of the teachers.

he is a charter school advocate and thusly anti-union.
though he will get my vote in november, i told myself many times in the last few years he would not. i couldn't vote for someone who cheered the firing of a whole town's teachers.
i like obama and hate romney but obama is not much of a democrat and no friend to public school teachers.

[Heather MC]

8. I know :(

His education appointee is further proof of that.
He is still better than the guy who think Corprorations are people.

I think the idea of charter schools on paper is good, but how they are choosing to impliment them is horrible. And privatizing anything always works to the benefit of the guy making all the money, not the people.

[Downwinder]

6. CTU the new PATCO?

[Are_grits_groceries]

9. I don't know who would have the

power to do that if anybody.