Latest News and Comment from Education

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

With A Brooklyn Accent: Why So Many Teachers Are Claiming the Label "Badass"

With A Brooklyn Accent: Why So Many Teachers Are Claiming the Label "Badass":

Why So Many Teachers Are Claiming the Label "Badass"

Why So Many Teachers Are Claiming the Label "Badass"


Many people, including some teachers, are confused as to why so many teachers are proudly calling themselves "badass" and joining a group which calls itself "The Badass Teachers Association, ' which was founded in mid June2013 and now has nearly 29,000 members and subgroups in all 50 States

While I cannot speak for all, or even most, of the people who have taken that step, I have been in communication with enough of these teacher activists to offer an explanation.

How would you feel after working hard all your life, and putting your heart and soul into a helping profession, people in influence have identified you, before the entire nation, as responsible for some of our society's worst failures and said you were spoiled, lazy, overpaid, and incompetent?.

Worse yet, after subjecting you to this public demonization, they ram through policies which undermine your job security, subject you to evaluation procedures which violate both due process and common sense, and seek to script and micromanage what you do in the 

On Observing Teachers to Death
Note on tenured professor privilege ( and why the powers that be want to eliminate people like me)-- I have not been observed ONCE since I was promoted to Full Professor over 20 years ago! Does this mean that I have decided to "punch it in" and collect my salary, while putting my students to sleep with stale lectures that i write on the blackboard? Exactly the opposite. Not only have I n