Teachers Wonder, Why the Scorn?

Kylie Marshall-Bohn

Response #4

            Sir Ken Robinson addresses many educational issues that America is dealing with today, in his video “Changing Education Paradigms”. This video gives brief details about some of the major issues in education. He talks about how our government created education during the enlightenment and how they made education “fit into our economy”. He explains that education was structured for a different age, and how America needs to make changes in education. He revels that there is a key problem, and its obvious, kids do not want to go to school, they are being forced to learn certain material, and for what a standardized test.

            America is basing all of children’s knowledge off of standardized tests. The government is making two enormous mistakes, one they make the tests extremely hard only full of the subjects they classified to be taught in schools. Second mistake is the rising number of teachers being laid off each year. Teacher’s students have to score a certain percent on the standardized test for teachers to maintain their jobs. Many teachers have been laid off due low standardized test scores from students. In the article “Teachers Wonder, Why the Scorn” gives a great example of teachers being laid off due to low standardized test scores, it states “Oakland has many poor students and schools at the bottom on standardized tests — schools the federal Education Department identifies as candidates to be sweepingly overhauled by removing half their staffs.” The teachers are not to blame for this low-test score, but yet they are the ones this issue is mainly affecting.

            Teacher’s have been receiving a lot of ridicule in the public eye lately for a number of things such as; asking for a higher income, asking for more benefits, low-test scores on standardized test and much more. The article “Teachers Wonder, Why the Scorn?” goes into great detail about what today’s teachers are dealing with.  Something I found interesting in the article was what this man said, “Oh you pathetic teachers, read the online comments and placards of counterdemonstrators. You are glorified baby sitters who leave work at 3 p.m. You deserve minimum wage.” If people really think that about teachers then it will be an incredibly long time before anything will change in education.

            Another rising concern for teachers is their lack of seniority can make them lose their jobs due to states cutting the school aid funds. One teacher tells his story “Last month Mr. Tougher was notified that because of his lack of seniority, he will be laid off, or “excesses,” this year under the state’s proposed cuts to school aid. A union activist, he believes seniority-based layoffs are fair.” There is a real problem here and something must be fixed.

            Seeing all of the countless issues the education system has is extremely scary. The teachers are getting a real “beating” from our education system and it needs to end soon. Teachers are sculpting the minds of the future and the government gives them no respect for that. Teachers derive to get paid way more than they are getting now. Overall Sir Ken Robinson says it best “education was built for a different age” and he’s right its time for a change.