So far so good. . . no remorse or anxiety four days after retiring. For a person as impulsive as me, that means I am home free. From here on out, my primary concern will be to forestall the physical and mental ravages of aging for as long as possible. First up is a health and fitness program. I found a picture of myself at 33 and that handsome fellow would not recognize what he morphed into at 63. But like the bloated hunk of marble from which Michael Angelo carved David, inside this amorphous flesh pot is a stud muffin waiting to be reborn. If all goes well on my diet and exercise program (begun this morning) I should be ready for prime time in the Spring of 2012. I will keep you posted with periodic photos on Facebook. I am sure you will all be duly inspired.
Working back to the title of this rant, allow me to briefly reflect on the things I have learned after three and a half decades of teaching. This rant will be dedicated to the things I have learned about my profession. Later reflections will be dedicated to other areas of my life experiences.
First: there is nothing more stupid than the manner in which teachers are compensated. Salaries are based on years of service and number of college units earned. That's it! Every other career-based endeavor compensates its employees based on competence, professional achievement, and the completion of established job-related goals. It is no wonder that American education is in deep trouble.
Second: where is it written that new school administrators must always find it necessary to adopt and mandate a new set of curriculum and instruction "bells and whistles" and then impose them on everyone? I have had seventeen principals in my teaching career and they all rush headlong down a similar path. What ever happened to that tried and true adage, if it ain't broken, then don't fix it? There are already enough teaching methodologies to create a country full of great schools, and no new idea, or worse, new technology, can ever fix what is wrong with a bad teacher. Further, as in every profession there is no such thing as one size fits all. Not even in the military, which is why our Special Ops programs are so damned good, right Osama?
Third: teachers who are working to get out of the classroom should be fired as quickly as possible. This will solve two problems. First, the number of lousy school administrators will be drastically diminished, and secondly, the number of highly motivated students will be dramatically increased. Any newly appointed administrator who says, "I really miss being in the classroom" is a liar and should be fired as soon as possible. For if that were true, said administrator never would have left the classroom in the first place. Managing and teaching require different skill sets and very few people are blessed with both. Further, anyone really good at managing people can find many more lucrative opportunities in other professions, leaving education to draw mostly from the shallow end of the talent pool.
Fourth: since bridge toll-takers, medical and dental assistants, casino card dealers, telemarketers, retail management trainees, and damned near everyone else have higher starting salary than do teachers, why is anyone surprised that so few talented people want to enter the profession? I have spent the vast majority of my teaching life in front of truly gifted young people and I can count on one hand the number of them who have opted for careers in secondary education. Quality college graduates are not all that rare, but quality teachers are. In every other society that claims to value education, professional teachers are among their highest paid workers. Not in this country. It is only in education that Americans are willing to buy a Fiat, and then act surprised when it fails to perform like a Ferrari.
Fifth: Not everyone in this country needs a traditional college education, so why do we spend so much money pretending that they do? Truly, factory jobs are disappearing, but technical positions in health care, electronics, energy production, agriculture, environmental management, and communication, are begging for a cadre of trained young people to fill high paying jobs with great career opportunities. Ours is a world of highly educated people living well at one end and an army of low paid and unskilled service workers at the other. With national drop-out rates averaging thirty percent, isn't it time to create a public technical skills track for those teens not suited for or desirous of a four year degree program? The for-profit sector has already figured this out, but since most of those so-called schools are totally unregulated, the quality of their graduates is highly problematic.
Sixth: When I started teaching words like respect and honor were incredibly important. Today all one hears is the phrase "self-esteem." Some time in the 1970s, the touchy-feely crowd decided that American kids needed to be lavished with unearned praise so they could feel good about themselves, without having actually accomplished anything. The result was going to be a generation of self confident kids breaking all achievement records. Of course, this movement totally failed in making kids more productive, but it succeeded in creating a sense of entitlement in children who never even attempt to excel at anything. Mere participation became the criterion for the nauseatingly over-used, "Good Job!" Showing up is not worthy of reward, doing the work is not exceptional, these are minimal expectations and deserve no commendation whatsoever. Cheers to all the Tiger Moms out there and to all of you syrupy praise lavishers. . . way to screw-up your kids.
OK, that is enough for now, but you can rest assured, I will be back with more. . . soon.
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