Teachers pissed to learn "zero tolerance" is a two way street

[dead0man]

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"zero tolerance" is always stupid.  The sooner society figures that out the better.

[dead0man]

We'd have to pay teachers a lot more if we did something like that and if we paid them more, we wouldn't need to do things like that to ensure quality teachers.

The best thing for teachers would be to make getting a teaching degree substantially more difficult.  Fewer teachers around would increase wages, and in time, bring in better people as teachers.  Right now, teaching is a "fall back" degree for way to many people.  A LOT of teachers started college wanting to be something else (a chemical engineer, a nuclear physicist, whatever) realize they are too stupid for such things and fall back on an easy to get teachers degree.

Damn it, now I've hijacked my own thread.

[dead0man]

What you say here about teachers may be true of some.  But having been a full-time college teacher for almost nine years now, my experience of people in the field tells me that what you say here is a grossly unfair on several counts, even putting aside your labelling of teachers as "stupid."  In many states the teacher certification process is rigorous.  Many are required to undertake professional development training at many stages during their working careers just to keep current on the most innovative teaching methods.  College teachers like myself generally had to go through at least four years of undergraduate school and at least six years of graduate school, while high school teachers have at minimum the four years of undergraduate school and many have in addition a two-year masters.  Jobs that are preceeded by six to ten years of training at the trainee's expense don't have lax standards.  (By the way, I want to add that I believe that grade school and high school teachers deserve to earn respectably more than college professors like me).  Bringing in fewer teachers might increase wages, but the number of students-per-teacher would increase unbearably and deprive students of the individual attention they need from teachers (they already get too little attention under present circumstances).  Most of the teachers that I have worked with and met intended to be teachers and pursued that goal with dedication and committment, it was not a "fall-back" degree for many, as it was not for me.wh

Anyway, regarding the original theme of this discussion, teachers who have been proven to have committed illegal drug posession offenses, particularly those which involve bringing the unauthorized drugs to their places of employment, should absolutely suffer zero-tolerance termination from their jobs.  No doubt about it.  

Aye.  Most of the teachers I've known personally (my sister for one) went to college to be a teacher.  Most teachers are great people that knowingly sacraficed a better life to "give a little back".  Thank whatever god you believe in that we have people like that.

The student-teacher ratio is a crock though.  Regular kids learning regular things don't need a 15-1 teacher to student ratio.

[dead0man]

Actually it is precisely the licensure requirements that interfere with getting good teachers - teaching is most definitely not a 'fall back position', because in order to teach in an american school you have to have planned for it something like a half-decade in advance, due to the requirement of getting an 'education' degree.  If you merely know your subject, perhaps even have a master's degree in it, you still can't teach in an american high school without going back for another couple of years of study in 'education classes'. 

Thus, we miss out on all the otherwise unemployed well educated people who could drop into teaching when it suited them, and are left only with the sort of miserables who would plan to be a teacher. 

You actually think just any jackass can teach?  I've taught a few classes in my life, (CPR in the Air Force was my big one) and I sucked at it.  I actually wanted to be a high school history teacher for a time, but I'm selfish and wanted to be better compensated so I chose a different life path.

[dead0man]

Harder than putting tar on the roofs of office buildings?

[dead0man]

Good luck with that.

[dead0man]

I've only had one union job and it was my first, worst and shortest job, bagging groceries.  Ok, sheetrocking may have been worse than baggin', but it paid (slightly) better.  I haven't not had a job since the first week of Feb 1993.  I just realized that was exactly 16 years ago.  Odd.

[dead0man]

Totally agree.


(and I've never tarred(?) myself, but I witnessed it.  On the roof of a 5 story office building at Emory University, Atlanta in July.  Two black guys that looked to be at least 65 if not 80 working the mops.  It was hot as hell on that roof anyway, but as you approached them and their large machine'O tar it became nearly unbearable.  You couldn't pay me enough to do that.  Of course I was wearing jeans, boots, a tshirt and a flannel and carrying 2 pieces of sheetrock back and forth across the roof.  This is why I joined the Air Force.)

[dead0man]

Somebody narked I think. 

<pure speculation>Some goody two shoes saw the art teacher getting high with the chemistry teacher in their cars after lunch.