What is Wrong with this Picture

It is popular in some areas to complain about teachers.


  • Tenure allows bad teachers to continue working long after they have should have been fired.
    • I will admit I have met teachers that should have been fired years ago, but I also know people in all lines of work who should be fired.
  • Teachers are overpaid.
    • I know a lot of people think teachers are overpaid, but I also happen to think a lot of CEO's, bankers, politicians, and car salesmen are overpaid. Just because I think it doesn't make it right.
  • Teachers should be considered glorified babysitters because students don't learn anything anyway.
    • As for babysitter trust me it is a lot easier than teaching. Of course if people compare the prices of daycare and public school they might think twice about this comparison.
  • Those who can do; those who can't teach.
    • one of the best answers I've ever seen is here.
      • It has been said that “He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.” I have often wondered whether there is any truth behind this frequently quoted expression, which surgical students hear from the early days of their clinical training. To find the answer, one must look at the origin of the phrase itself—back to the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw (1903). Shaw, however, was referring to revolutionaries, not teachers. The phrase is, therefore, used out of context. Most of us, looking back over our training, can attribute our choice of specialty to one or more mentors—teachers so enthusiastic and inspirational that they instilled within us the desire to better ourselves and thereby better serve our patients. They taught us to think for ourselves. Most of us will also admit that these inspiring individuals were not just devoted teachers but had notably inquiring minds and were almost always exceptional clinicians.

      • Charles H Mayo (1865-1939), one of the founders of the internationally renowned Mayo Clinic, once said: “The safest thing for a patient is to be in the hands of a man involved in teaching medicine. In order to be a teacher of medicine the doctor must always be a student.” Therefore, the next time you hear Shaw quoted out of context, perhaps you might respond by quoting Mayo, a man described not only as an inspirational teacher but also as a “surgical wonder.” Perhaps those who don’t teach it can’t do it as well as they think.

        Farhad B Naini consultant in facial deformity, St George’s Hospital and Medical School, London
  • If children can't pass a simple test they aren't learning anything.
    • I don't know where to start on this one, but I will say that I have never had a job that required me to answer test questions as a regular duty. I have however been required to actually DO things for a living.

The complaints are there, but really they have little merit, outside of the tendency of people to complain whenever they get the chance.

The question then arises why am I bothering to bring it up?
Simple I want to do a bit of complaining myself.

I am complaining, but on the other-hand I do believe this flawed view of education does hurt the entire system in this country.

Think for a second if you were a business manager looking to hire an expert; what would you do?

What happens when schools are looking to hire new teachers?

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