Worst Professor Ever

It’s almost September, and I’ve been keeping my posts education-oriented in the last month as a tribute to my homies going back to school. Despite leaving the teaching game, I’ll continue to have a vested interested in education, at least as long as people who’ve never taught continue to have very public  opinions about teachers. But I also want to blog about other things. I’m about to leave on a trip, so expect more of a travelogue (and no, not a spiritually-driven memoir or “chick” lit) in the next few weeks.  Then again, I’ll be hanging out with teachers in most places, so who knows, if pierogies, kielbasa, and meat-and-threes aren’t enough, maybe we’ll end up discussing education at a national level.

I’ll leave you with one last education-related post, made brief by more job stuff. (And thanks to my readers for all the encouragement, by the way!). I talked before about why college teachers need to write out the rules of work etiquette for their students; this video suggests that high school teachers need to do the same thing for parents:

Now, many have speculated it’s a hoax (the spelling, for instance, could use some help). To be honest I don’t care if it is or not, because it effectively makes a point that needs to be made: not only do today’s teachers have to spell out every single rule making up functional adult behavior, they have to fight with irresponsible parents about doing it. If you’re going to force teachers to make your children into responsible adults, which is essentially raising your kids for you, you’re really going to have to let them bill you by the hour.

I shared this video with several people I knew, and I was heartened to see that most parents also thought it was funny. I hope you will too, but I also hope you’ll believe me when I say it needs to be included on every class syllabus. And understand how much work it takes to itemize the social contract then enforce it on a daily basis. And how much energy is wasted doing that, just to get to people to a point where learning might be able to happen. And how much time this takes away from actual education in the classroom, and why you shouldn’t blame teachers for that fact when it’s somebody else’s fault that the kids are acting like they’ve been raised by wild dogs.