Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ncar!noao!arizona!naucse!jdc
From: jdc@naucse.UUCP (John Campbell)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Public Education is a Fraud
Message-ID: <1088@naucse.UUCP>
Date: 28 Dec 88 15:23:08 GMT
References: <1124@actnyc.UUCP>
Organization: Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ
Lines: 58

From article <1124@actnyc.UUCP>, by jsb@actnyc.UUCP (The Invisible Man):
% )In article <7.UUL1.3#913@acw.UUCP> scott@acw.UUCP (Scott Guthery) writes:
% ):: Teachers succeed without teaching and students succeed without learning.  
% ):: Is there really any question why there's no education going on in our 
% ):: education system?
% ):: 
% ):: A teacher's only use for students to get money out of taxpayers.  The
% ):: more money they get, the less they teach.  Once they get tenure or graduate
% ):: into administration, they do nothing useful at all.  $300 billion/year we 
% 	[ more of the same deleted]
% 
% In article <4463@sfsup.UUCP> dwd@/guestc/dwdUUCP (45421-D.W.Dougherty) writes:
% )I believe that load and fanatic applause is appropriate here!!
% 
% Clearly, writing skills are poorly taught. ;-)
% 
% The fact is that teaching is not valued; at least not in the USofA.  The day
% I quit teaching to become a computer consultant I doubled my salary.  I've
% since doubled it again.  The ones who remain behind tend to be those who
% can't make it in the real world.  I'm speaking here of institutions geared
% for teaching.  At those geared for research, teaching is often a chore 
% delegated to those without political pull or seniority to avoid it.  Ability
% to teach rarely enters into the equation.  I am, of course, speaking in 
% generalities.  There are numerous exceptions.  The point is that we get what
% we pay for.  The 'fraud' is being perpetrated on ourselves.  As W.C. Fields
% said, "You can't cheat an honest man."
% 
% -- 
% Spaffords Axiom:
%     "The Usenet is not the real world.  The Usenet usually does not even
%     resemble the real world."
% 			jim (uunet!actnyc!jsb)

I agree with jim (what he said). I also left teaching, in my case from the
secondary level, because, in part, I kept hearing "them that can do, them that
can't teach."  Even in a continuing education course I heard this from a
prof who wondered what all those high school teachers were doing in a complex
analysis course.  (My response was "them that can't teach teach teachers".)

In my family there have been a number of past generations of teachers to
compare myself against.  In no other generation, as far as I can tell, has
teaching been such a lowly profession.  At one point I worked as both a
high school teacher and an on-call ambulance driver.  In many social settings
I would just mention the ambulance work (which took a 1 semester course to
prepare for) to avoid having people make some rude remark about teachers.  
One of the posters above is an example of what I mean.

Salary is only part of it, many people work at jobs that don't pay well
but are respected.  Teaching no longer pays well and is no longer respected.

Finally, there are some great teachers left in the system.  My son had one
here in this small town.  How they manage to last it out for more than 5 years
remains one of those mysteries of dedication that most of us will never
understand.  I only wish great teachers were the norm and not the exception.
-- 
	John Campbell               ...!arizona!naucse!jdc
                                    CAMPBELL@NAUVAX.bitnet
	unix?  Sure send me a dozen, all different colors.