Normally I run my nonsense here and
Out in Left Field before submitting to local papers. However, this latest assault on teachers had me so infuriated that I rushed an op-ed off to
The Tampa Tribune first.
Work schedules will change for high school teachers next year.
Read my response.
Discuss amongst yourselves.
Ron Jamison
3 years ago
There are several teachers living less than one hundred meters from me. I see these people doing any and everything but grading papers in the evenings.
I see these same people hanging out around their homes during the work day. What’s up with that? Being a teacher, or educator of you wish, you are a salaried employee not a hourly employee. Therefore you have no right to demand more money for doing your job while at the job site. If you do not like taking papers home with you to grade, leave them at your work place but be ready and willing to receive your pink slip for not getting the job done.
If you educators wanted to become rich you should have gone into another profession. What ever happen to wanting to help children? And if you think for one minute that you guys have it bad, try doing a couple of tours in Iraq where every duty day is twenty four hours long. Stop ranting, fulfill the terms of your contract while looking for another field of employment. Good luck!
kate
3 years ago
Ron – you don’t seem to understand that your bitterness and/or post traumatic stress syndrome isn’t going to help improve public schools. If our schools get worse, so do our neighborhoods and in turn our state. It helps everyone to have our teachers paid a decent wage. It also helps everyone to (the main thrust of my argument) build more schools and hire more teachers because we have a growth situation here in the Sunshine State that must be addressed.
Get a hold of some meds and that anger, Ronny. Then suck it.
Dawn
3 years ago
What other job requires so much of one individual and then offers such little in return in terms of support, financial and otherwise? I jumped through hoops for 4 months this year just to try to become a public school teacher before giving up and moving on. Sure I think of the kids I could have met and helped this year if I had stuck it out a little longer. But there’s a time when you have to realize it’s just not worth it. I have immense respect for you Katie, because you put yourself out there, bettering these kids and the place we all live.
james
3 years ago
Did anyone read the final report of the national education reform commission? CNN.com had the results on Saturday. In a nutshell it stated that high school should end at the 10th grade. Teachers should be paid more and be taken off a pension and put on a 401 K plan. Students should be either be prep for college or vo-tech. The current education system is broken and we need to overhall it like the rest of the industrial world. Funny how the NEA is opposed to the changes. I think we need to do something. What do you all think?
wifey
3 years ago
On the original topic of Kate’s post. I as a parent of a Junior I’m very upset by the decision to go back to traditional schedules. The kids learn so much more in block session. Block session gives the studen and teacher to work more together. Traditional schedule just send more work home, without professional help. I love teachers and my daughter wants to be one. I just hope enough support keeps block session.
tim
3 years ago
If you educators wanted to become rich you should have gone into another profession. What ever happen to wanting to help children?
Desire does not equal ability.
Repeat that to yourself, Ron. Desire does not equal ability. Let me prove it to you.
I really want to be a professional hockey player. I’ve wanted it since I was a small child, strapping on skates down at the pond at Ritter Park, along the frozen-over Maumee River. A fire, indeed, burns within me to be a hockey player. But I can’t be a hockey player, Ron, because I wasn’t blessed with the skills to be a hockey player. I am awkward, and slow, and slight.
“Wanting to help children” does not qualify one to be a teacher. Possessing the specific skill set to be able to educate children does. These skills are not broadly-distributed. They include:
Patience
Intelligence
Public speaking ability
Florida’s approach to teachers is to assume that desire equals ability, and that’s why Florida has a godawful education system that’s in the bottom five in the nation.
If Florida really cared about educating their children — and I’m pretty sure that they don’t, because the Bush brothers consistently make decisions that leave our children less educated — they’d pay teachers commensurate with other licensed, degreed professionals.
The best and brightest who in 1970 were going into education are now going into accounting, law, and medicine. Teaching isn’t respected as a profession anymore, and if we don’t make major changes soon, we’re going to slide further down the list.
Sandy
3 years ago
back in ‘74, when I was a sophomore at Brandon, they started this Team Teaching concept. Apparently this was a precursor to this block session. It was great. You had the same teachers and the same classmates for your core courses. Very successful, to us kids. Don’t know if it’s still in use in that former incarnation but it sure helped me.
And I’m thinking Ron Jamison is actually Vilmar in disguise.
C.W.
3 years ago
Gotta disagree Sandy, Jamison’s an even bigger phallus than Vilmar! “If you educators wanted to become rich you should have gone into another profession. What ever happen to wanting to help children?” How about the need to eke out a decent living, skortbreath? BTW “whatever” is one word, not two.
tommy
3 years ago
CW, what’s with calling people names? If you can prove they are liars, then by all means, call ‘em liars. If you can prove they are stupid, again, by all means.
But I see no reason to be calling anyone “phallus” or “skortbreath.” What are you, 11 years old?
Please – make your points – but quit the name calling…
C.W.
3 years ago
I apologize, Tommy. Could have made my point just fine without those added bonuses.
Jason
3 years ago
what the hell is a skort? I have a feeling I am either too young or too old to get it.
When I was at Armwood it was 50 minute classes, which meant we frequently got cut off in the middle of a lesson and spent half our day in the hallway getting to the next class. Ronnie, you sound angry but I am not sure how honorable military duty relates to the discussion, remember that you have to share the streets, movie theaters, a workplace with the children who are not being properly educated so you have a vested interest in seeing they get a proper education.