I need a nap.

[stjudesshipper]

Monday I had to break up a brawl! I had to wade in to the midst of OVER 100 high school kids and pull them off one another. The "best" part was this was a community service day celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Most of the murals on that side of the room were destroyed in the fight. Everyone, including the 300 other kids who were doing just fine

Comments

[persistent_sun]

That massive firing doesn't include you, does it?

[stjudesshipper]

I don't technically work for the school, I work for Americorps, but it doesn't really make for a cheerful work environment.

[persistent_sun]

Okay, that's what I thought, just confused by the "school I work at" bit. Really, the whole thing just seems . . . dumb. "Of the 167 teachers deemed the worst of the lot among those seven schools and ousted by the board, more than half ended up back in Chicago public schools, including some targeted for improvement." They should just get it over with and recruit registered pedophiles. Hmm, now that I wrote that, it looks like it might seem disparaging to the work you're doing. But it also sounds like a joke you'd enjoy, so I think I'll leave it. Along with this little stream-o'-consciousness note. I like duckies.

[stjudesshipper]

The problem is that the people who get hired back into the system are the ones with tenure, who tend to be the most awful teachers imaginable, but they can't get rid of them. My school has a lot of very young teachers who have been improving things, and those are the people who really suffer.

[persistent_sun]

I've always hated the tenure system, how it removes the incentive to Be Good and Improve and all that, and when budgets are cut they're forced to fire the new teachers who may be much better. The problem, of course, is that when you've spent 10 or 30 years as a teacher, if you're suddenly fired, you have no savings to fall back on since teachers get paid squat. I think that Education is one of those problems that could only truly be solved if the budgets were doubled (not that that's all that it will take, but yeah).